Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Donald Trump for the first time in 16 months at the G7 summit in France, and also held formal bilateral meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Modi-Trump Meeting
Modi and Trump participated in an outreach session, sitting next to each other. The leaders greeted each other with a handshake, not a hug, and exchanged pleasantries. A photo uploaded by Modi on X showed them having a brief conversation. A formal Modi-Trump bilateral meeting is expected on the margins of the summit in the resort town of Evian on Wednesday. This was the first meeting between the two since Modi's visit to the White House in February last year.
Meeting with Canadian PM Carney
In the meeting with Carney, both leaders reaffirmed their joint commitment to concluding negotiations for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement at an early date. Carney stated the deadline was the G20 summit in December. Modi told Carney he looked forward to visiting Canada and hoped the agreement would be finalized by then. Modi also said Canada could become an important energy security partner for India, as they reviewed progress in bilateral economic cooperation, including developments in commercial arrangements relating to LNG, LPG, and metallurgical coal.
To further deepen defense and security cooperation, the two PMs agreed to launch negotiations on a general security of information agreement. They also welcomed recent exchanges between defense institutions, including the visit of the National Defence College of India to Canada, according to a joint press statement. Reaffirming their commitment to building a forward-looking strategic partnership, the PMs underscored the complementarities between the Indian and Canadian economies and highlighted the importance of resilient and reliable supply chains in strengthening global energy and food security.
The leaders noted ongoing collaboration under the Canada-India Talent and Innovation Strategy, including initiatives to strengthen skill development, innovation partnerships, and educational cooperation between institutions in the two countries, the statement added.
Meeting with UK PM Starmer
After the meeting with Starmer, Modi said in a post on X that they discussed ways to work closely in areas like innovation, artificial intelligence, skill development, sports, and more. We also discussed how to increase investment linkages for the benefit of the people of our nations, he wrote.
