Canadian trade negotiators are racing to close deals with two Asian markets representing nearly 2.2 billion people, setting up a frenetic few months of talks and trips on both sides of the Pacific.
Ottawa is looking to conclude trade talks with India and ASEAN, a bloc of 11 Southeast Asian states, by the end of 2026. Canada’s ongoing trade dispute with the U.S. has made meeting that deadline all the more important.
Following the fourth round of Canada–India trade talks last week, Canadian trade minister Maninder Sidhu travelled to Mumbai to meet with his Indian counterpart, Piyush Goyal; the two agreed to “fast-track” an already-expedited timeline, pushing the pace into overdrive. Goyal stated that the next round of trade talks will take place on October 5.
Need for speed
In late 2010, Ottawa and New Delhi agreed to launch negotiations on a trade deal. Talks lurched ahead until September 2023, at which point Ottawa suspended negotiations.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney restarted talks in March 2026. In a wide-ranging interview released last week, Canada’s high commissioner to India, Chris Cooter, told The Hindu that “we’ve probably done more in these six months than we did in those [13] years.” (Speed has been a calling card for this government: following the signing of a 100-year defence agreement between Kyiv and Ottawa, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy disclosed that “Our teams told us that in 90 days we can have a deal... then Mark [Carney] said, ‘Can we have it in nine days?’”)
Cooter told The Hindu that he was “pretty confident” a deal would be reached by the time Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Canada in December. But recent government communications have muddied that timeline.
Carney said at the Canada Investment Summit that “Canadian businesses enjoy tariff-free access to 1.5 billion consumers... over the next six months, we intend to double that number through new trade deals, from ASEAN to India.” (He repeated this timeline in an interview with Bloomberg.)
Carney’s looser timeline would extend the deadline for an agreement into March, giving negotiators a little more breathing room — but still only one year to hammer out a complex deal.
For context, Canada and Indonesia took roughly 3.5 years to conclude negotiations on a trade deal. Canada’s negotiations with ASEAN, meanwhile, have been ongoing for nearly five years.
Mumbai to Manila
Following his visit to Mumbai, Sidhu carried on to Manila for the 15th ASEAN Economic Ministers–Canada Consultation.
He told Reuters that negotiations with ASEAN — and on a separate free trade agreement with the Philippines — are more than 90 per cent complete. In 2025, Canada–ASEAN bilateral merchandise trade reached C$52.5 billion, up 23.7 per cent compared to 2024.
If Carney can ink deals with ASEAN and India before the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Miami, Florida, on December 14–15, it would mark real progress in Canada’s diversification drive, while giving Ottawa modest leverage in its trade talks with the U.S.
