New Delhi (AFP) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will seek to reset strained ties and push efforts to diversify trade beyond the United States when he meets his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Monday. The talks in New Delhi are expected to cover trade and investment, clean energy, defence, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence, officials from both sides have said. A major focus will be reviving negotiations for a long-discussed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. Speaking to business leaders in Mumbai on Saturday, Carney said the planned deal, which he was looking to seal by the end of the year, could double bilateral trade by 2030.
“This visit marks the end of a challenging period, and more importantly, the beginning of a new, more ambitious partnership between two confident and complementary nations,” he said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi of orchestrating a deadly campaign against Sikh activists in Canada. India’s foreign ministry said Carney’s visit marked a “significant step” in strengthening relations. India is seeking to attract more overseas investments and says Canadian pension and wealth funds have already invested $73 billion. Energy-hungry India — the world’s most populous country, with 1.4 billion people — hopes Canada can support its ambitious plan to expand nuclear power capacity.
“We can be India’s strategic partner in critical minerals for India’s manufacturing, clean tech, and nuclear industries,” Carney said. “And India can help us double our grid with clean power by 2040.” Before Carney took office last year, Ottawa accused Modi’s government of direct involvement in the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalised Canadian citizen who was part of a fringe group that advocated for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. Khalistan militants have been blamed for the assassination of an Indian prime minister and the bombing of a passenger jet. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government further alleged India had directed a broader campaign of intimidation against Sikh activists across Canada.
India has repeatedly dismissed the allegations, which sent relations into freefall, with both nations expelling a string of top diplomats in 2024. Strategic analyst and author Brahma Chellaney said Carney’s trip was “intended to close one of the most acrimonious diplomatic chapters between two major democracies in recent memory.” “For two pluralistic democracies navigating an uncertain century, this may prove to be the most sustainable foundation of all,” he said on X. Ties between New Delhi and Ottawa improved after Carney took office in March 2025, and envoys have since been restored.
“Building true strategic autonomy requires diversification, not isolation,” Carney said. “It creates enormous opportunities for India and Canada to work together, to limit risks, to increase prosperity, and to build sovereignty.” Carney has made reducing Canada’s heavy reliance on the US economy a centrepiece of his foreign economic policy. In 2024, before US President Donald Trump returned to office and upended global trade with a flurry of tariffs, more than 75 percent of Canadian exports went to the United States. Two-way trade that year exceeded $900 billion.
So far, Trump has broadly adhered to the North American free-trade agreement he signed during his first term, and about 85 percent of US-Canada trade remains tariff-free. But at the same time, Trump has also imposed painful industry-specific tariffs, and there are fears that if he scraps the broader trade deal, the Canadian economy will be hit hard. Carney is trying to boost commerce with Europe and Asia as a strategy to backstop Canada’s economy, should free trade with Washington collapse. After India, Carney will travel to Australia and Japan — part of a wider push to broaden Canada’s economic partnerships.
© 2024 AFP
