Canada races to seal India trade pact by year-end, deepen EU ties

NEW DELHI: Canada is racing to seal a trade pact with India and deepen ties with the European Union as it seeks to reduce reliance on the US amid President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policy, Foreign Minister Anita Anand said on Wednesday.

The push is central to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to diversify trade and strengthen ties with the EU, China and other countries even as Ottawa seeks to maintain cooperation with Washington on trade, defence and security.

“The Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement with India is part of our trade diversification strategy, and yes, we aim to conclude it by the end of the year,” Anand told Reuters in an interview at the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi.

“Canada has a goal of doubling non-US trade over the next 10 years,” Anand said. Canada and the EU are expected to discuss cooperation on critical minerals, energy and artificial intelligence at a summit later this month, building on trade ties under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Anand said.

Canada is also broadening its trade partnerships, having signed a free trade agreement with Indonesia last year and is looking to sign a pact with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026. Ottawa has concluded 15 trade agreements covering 51 countries and 1.5 billion consumers, she said.

“It is really about our national resilience and our sovereignty,” Anand said. “We need to ensure that we are not reliant on any one country for the economic resilience that our country has been able to exhibit.”

INDIA TRADE PACT

Negotiations on the India agreement were progressing well, Anand said, adding that Indian trade negotiators had visited Canada last week and Canadian Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu was in India with a business delegation. Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had discussed the agreement, she said. Modi is expected to visit Canada in December.

Canada says a deal could more than double bilateral goods and services trade to USD70 billion annually by 2030 from the USD30.4 billion recorded in 2025. Goods trade with India reached USD10.9 billion in 2025, with Canadian exports falling 26.5 percent from 2024, while imports from India rose by 18.9 percent.

A CUSD2.6 billion (USD1.8 billion) uranium supply agreement between Canadian company Cameco and India, signed earlier this year, was one tangible outcome of closer cooperation, she said.

In one example of deepening economic ties, Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings has agreed to buy a majority stake in India’s IDBI Bank in a deal valued at 528.78 billion rupees (USD5.56 billion), in what will be India’s biggest cross-border bank deal.

The two countries are seeking to rebuild ties following a diplomatic dispute over the 2023 killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Anand said restoring relations was a gradual process, with national security and the rule of law central to the effort. “We are speaking about our sovereignty and our resilience, and we need to continue to focus on that,” she said.