India–Brazil Set $30 B Trade Goal and Seal Critical Mineral Pacts During Lula’s 2026 Delhi Visit

Resource-security deals between rising powers echo Japan’s 2010 scramble for Australian rare earths after Beijing’s export curb, and India’s own 1973 oil-diversification push post-OPEC shock. The Lula-Modi reset fits a decades-long pattern—from the 1955 Bandung spirit to the 2003 launch of IBSA—of Global South democracies trying to trade more with each other and dilute reliance on Northern supply chains. By wedding AI governance talks (the “Bletchley process”) with hard-commodity pacts, Delhi and Brasília signal that future power will flow from pairing digital rules with mineral control. Whether the ambitious $30 bn goal sticks will hinge on logistics, tariff reform and political continuity, but if it does, historians in 2126 may view this week as one more stitch in the slow re-weaving of a multipolar economic fabric away from a U.S.–China-centric order.