Canada and India move to reset ties as trust in U.S. falters
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) walks with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney before their meeting at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi on March 2, 2026.
Sajjad Hussain | Afp | Getty Images
India and Canada need new friends — and customers. So this week, they put past, painful differences aside to pledge closer ties during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to New Delhi, as U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran escalated.
But the commitment is far from a full reset. It comes after the assassination of a Sikh activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Canada in 2023, which caused tensions between India and Canada, with each side expelling diplomats the following year. The Canadian government had accused Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of plotting to target Sikh separatists in Canada. India has emphatically denied any connection to the killing.
Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia risk insight, corporate risk and sustainability at Singapore-based risk advisory firm Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC that a “true reset” in the relationship would depend on whether the visit leads to “sustained, working-level cooperation.”
She added that Nijjar’s killing “remains the single biggest political constraint on the relationship” and is unlikely to fade because “one meeting went well.”
“I’d describe this as a meaningful thaw, moving in the right direction, but not a clean slate,” she added.
The U.S. effect
Carney and Modi have extra motivation to forge ties, as Donald Trump reorders global trade and the U.S. is waging war on Iran.
“The United States is extremely volatile, not particularly predictable, and frankly, if I may be blunt about it, destabilizing many of the institutions and structures around the world,” Evan Feigenbaum, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNBC on Tuesday.
He said Carney’s trip to India and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent visit to China “is in no small degree in reaction to volatility from the United States.”
“On the strategic front, India is looking to build closer ties with Western nations beyond the U.S.,” said Arpit Chaturvedi, South Asia advisor at Teneo.
“The bitterness of the Nijjar case lingers but can be overlooked if those officials directly under Carney’s control (i.e. his cabinet) do not bring up the matter,” he added.
Promises of trade
On Monday, Carney and Modi vowed to expand bilateral trade to 70 billion Canadian dollars ($51 billion) by 2030. Carney also committed to finalizing a comprehensive economic pact with India by the end of this year.
The two leaders also welcomed the 2.6 billion-Canadian-dollar commercial pact between Cameco Corp and India’s Department of Atomic Energy for the long-term supply of uranium.
But India’s ministry of external affairs confirmed, during the press conference to discuss details of the India-Canada meeting, that the previous uranium supply pact signed in 2015 between Cameco and India was not fulfilled.
Narendra Modi,…
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