India and the Global South in an Age of Weaponized Trade

When I spoke today about India and the Global South, I found myself returning to a simple question: what does it mean for a nation to be independent when the things it needs every day travel across borders? Our food systems depend on fertilizers and fuel. Our industries depend on minerals, machinery and markets. A disruption at a distant port can reach an Indian factory; a rise in the price of oil can reach a household budget. Political freedom remains indispensable, but our capacity to exercise it increasingly depends on the resilience of these connections.

This is why India's engagement with the Global South deserves more than the language of solidarity. It is also a matter of national security. The countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific contain vital energy resources, critical minerals, markets, sea routes and people whose choices will shape the coming century. They also know what it means to have decisions about finance, technology and security made elsewhere. India can work with them to enlarge its own freedom of action while helping them enlarge theirs. That is a more demanding proposition than claiming to be their leader.

The freedom to trade without being trapped

For a long time, we were told that economic interdependence would make political rivalry less likely. Trade has indeed lifted living standards and created relationships across borders. Yet interdependence can also become an instrument of pressure. A powerful country may impose tariffs to punish another government's choices, restrict exports of a crucial input, block financial transactions or use its control over a technology to extract concessions. Trade, once imagined merely as an exchange of mutual benefit, can be weaponized.

The International Monetary Fund has documented a growing fragmentation of trade and investment along geopolitical lines. The World Trade Organization, however, warns that a retreat into rival economic blocs could make the world poorer and less secure. These observations should be read together. India's answer cannot be to close itself off from the world. It should remain open to trade while making sure that no single supplier, market, transport route or technology provider can hold its essential interests hostage.

This is the practical meaning of trade diversification. A manufacturer who buys a vital component from only one country can find production halted by an export restriction. An exporter who depends overwhelmingly on one market can suffer when that market suddenly raises barriers. A country that has several credible suppliers and customers can negotiate with greater confidence. Diversification may sometimes cost more in the short run. The additional cost is comparable to an insurance premium against a much larger strategic loss.

Recent restrictions on critical minerals make this risk visible. The International Energy Agency reported that China is the leading refiner for 19 of 20 strategic minerals it examined, with an average share of around 70 per cent. Chinese export controls on certain rare earth elements in 2025 disrupted supplies to industries that use permanent magnets. The point is not that trade with China should cease. The point is that extreme concentration gives decisions made in one capital the power to interrupt production across the world. India, which faces a difficult security relationship with China, has particular reason to understand this vulnerability.

We must also avoid replacing one dependence with another. A policy that moves every supply chain into a single friendly bloc may appear safer until that bloc changes its priorities. India's relationships with the United States, Europe, Japan, Russia, West Asia and the developing world each serve different purposes. Strategic autonomy requires the ability to work with several partners without surrendering the final choice to any of them. Trade diversification is therefore not a slogan for indiscriminate agreements. It asks us to identify where dependence is dangerous, build alternative sources, maintain reasonable domestic capacity and keep routes of commerce open.

Energy security and energy sovereignty

Energy makes the stakes immediate. India imports much of the oil it consumes. The International Energy Agency described India as the world's second-largest net importer of crude oil in 2023 and projected that import needs could grow as its economy and refining activity expand. A disruption in supply or a sharp price rise affects transport, inflation, government finances and the ordinary citizen. Reliable and affordable energy is thus a condition of both economic development and national security.

Energy security concerns the availability and affordability of energy today. Energy sovereignty goes further: it is the capacity to decide our energy future without another country exercising an effective veto. Sovereignty does not mean that every barrel of oil, solar panel or battery mineral must originate on Indian soil. No large modern economy enjoys such complete self-sufficiency. It means retaining workable choices among fuels, suppliers, technologies and routes, and having enough domestic capability to absorb a shock.

India consequently needs a layered approach. It must maintain multiple sources of crude oil and gas, adequate reserves and reliable shipping arrangements. It must strengthen domestic power generation, grids and storage. It must use energy more efficiently. It should also expand solar, wind, nuclear and other suitable sources so that rising prosperity does not automatically translate into a proportionate rise in imported fossil fuels. The IEA's assessment of Indian energy investment notes efforts to diversify the generation mix through renewables and nuclear power. Such diversification serves climate goals, but it also serves strategic independence.

The transition itself creates a fresh dilemma. Batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and advanced electronics require minerals and processing capacity that are highly concentrated. A country may reduce its dependence on imported oil only to become dependent on imported batteries, magnets or refining services. We should therefore ask of every energy technology: where do its materials come from, who processes them, who owns the technology, and can we repair or replace it during a crisis? Energy sovereignty requires attention to the whole chain, not only the final product installed in India.

India should pursue partnerships with mineral-rich countries of the Global South on fair terms. These countries are understandably unwilling to remain mere exporters of raw materials while others capture the greater value from processing and manufacturing. Joint ventures, local skills, responsible mining, refining capacity and predictable market access can make cooperation worthwhile for both sides. If we speak of partnership while taking resources without helping build local capabilities, we will reproduce the inequalities we say we oppose.

Why the Global South matters to this strategy

The Global South is not a single political camp. A Gulf energy producer, an African mineral exporter and a Pacific island threatened by rising seas do not share precisely the same priorities. India should not assume that a common history of colonialism gives it automatic authority to speak for them. It should instead look for interests that can be advanced together.

Consider energy. India needs secure and affordable supplies. Several partners need stable demand, investment and better infrastructure. Island states and vulnerable countries need finance for clean energy and protection from climate disasters. Through the International Solar Alliance, disaster resilience cooperation and country-specific energy partnerships, India can help connect these needs. The arrangement must remain sensitive to the different stages of development and to the fact that a quick energy transition is much harder for societies without affordable capital.

The same applies to trade. India can expand markets in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, but market access should flow in both directions. Better shipping links, simpler customs procedures, trusted digital payments and standards that smaller businesses can meet would do more than ceremonial declarations. Where a partner seeks to build its own pharmaceutical, food-processing or mineral industries, India should explore cooperation that creates local value. A stronger trading partner is a more durable partner.

There are already foundations. During India's G20 presidency in 2023, the African Union became a permanent member of that forum. India convened three Voice of Global South Summits from 2023 to 2024, creating a space to hear concerns often overshadowed in great-power meetings. Its proposed Global Development Compact included trade, capacity building, technology sharing and finance for specific projects. Training through ITEC, lines of credit and more recent work with the United Nations add practical instruments. None of these announcements alone proves leadership. Their significance lies in what they can help other countries actually do.

From a realist perspective, such cooperation enlarges India's bargaining power. When many countries ask for fairer climate finance, more representative institutions or reliable access to technology, their voice carries greater weight. India also gains diverse economic links and a more secure maritime environment. The aim should be reciprocal strength: countries that are less vulnerable to coercion are better placed to trade freely with one another.

The China question and the temptation of easy answers

China is an unavoidable presence in this story. Its banks and companies have financed infrastructure on a scale India cannot simply match. Many countries have welcomed Chinese projects because roads, power plants and ports answered genuine needs. China also presents itself as a voice of the developing world. Treating every partner's relationship with China as a mistake would be both inaccurate and disrespectful.

Yet Chinese dominance in mineral processing, industrial supply chains and parts of development finance creates vulnerabilities. Some lending arrangements can limit a borrower's financial flexibility. India's concern is sharpened by its own border dispute with China and by the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean. The sensible response is neither to demand that developing countries choose between India and China nor to promise that India will outspend China. India should offer a choice that partners find attractive: transparent financing, dependable completion, training, maintenance and respect for local decisions.

We should apply the same standards to ourselves. An Indian project that is delayed or negotiated without adequate consultation will not become good simply because it is Indian. If India asks others to diversify their dependencies, it must be willing to help them gain real agency. This requires patient institutions and honest evaluation. What was promised? What was delivered? Who gained the skills to run the project after the visitors left? Such questions may seem prosaic, but they determine whether a partnership survives a change of government or a diplomatic crisis.

A civilizational idea tested by material realities

India's invocation of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the world as one family, speaks to an aspiration that I value. It reminds us that national interests need not be pursued by denying another nation's dignity. But no family remains healthy if one member alone decides what everyone else needs. The civilizational idea becomes credible when India listens, shares knowledge without claiming ownership of every solution, and respects the independence of smaller states.

There is no conflict between this ethic and prudent statecraft. A partner that trusts India is more likely to sustain trade, cooperate at sea and stand with it on a question of institutional reform. Conversely, a grand statement about shared destiny rings hollow if an energy project never supplies power or a promised credit line never produces a functioning facility. Our credibility is built in the ordinary details of delivery.

India must invest in its own strength as well. Better manufacturing, research, universities, ports and power systems are not separate from foreign policy. They are what allow India to offer useful alternatives when a supply chain is disrupted. Domestic capacity and outward-looking partnership belong together. A country secure in its capabilities can remain open to the world without being easily coerced.

I return, finally, to the question with which I began. Independence in the twenty-first century is not isolation. It is the ability to keep choosing under pressure. Trade diversification protects that choice when commerce is weaponized. Energy sovereignty protects it when fuel, technology or minerals become instruments of leverage. Engagement with the Global South can help India achieve both, provided it also increases the choices available to its partners.

India does not need a crown as the singular leader of a diverse Global South. It needs the harder reputation of a country that listens carefully, acts consistently and helps others stand more firmly on their own feet. If it can build that reputation, its strategic interests and its civilizational imagination will reinforce one another. That would be leadership worth remembering a decade from now.