Don't expect Trump to keep the pressure on India over hit squads operating in Canada

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's foreign minister who has tangled repeatedly with Canada, said last year that many countries were nervous after the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

But he said India was "not one of them."

This week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Trump in the White House, following a recent visit by Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu — a close friend of Modi's.

Talks already held between Jaishankar and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio give a strong indication of what's on the agenda.

The U.S. wants India to buy more American arms (India has always been a loyal customer of the Russian arms industry). It also wants to talk about immigration and deportations with India, which is hoping to preserve the H-1B visa and others that open the door to Indian IT workers.

There is also sure to be talk of trade and trade barriers.

But what almost certainly won't happen is what happened at the G20 in New Delhi in September 2023, when then-president Joe Biden spoke to Modi about the Indian government's alleged plots to kill its enemies in North America.

It was the U.S. government that provided Canada with some of the critical intelligence that allowed it to confidently blame the government of India for the activities of the hit squad that killed Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. (and likely a number of other people).

When India denied those allegations, it was the U.S. government that took Canada's side and told India to co-operate with Canadian investigators.

It was also the U.S. government that complained to New Delhi about a conspiracy on its own soil, aimed at U.S.-Canadian citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who lives in New York City.

That allegation, rather than Canada's allegations about Nijjar, is what led India to acknowledge that its own officials had indeed been involved in plotting crimes in North America — albeit with the implausible claim that they were acting as rogue agents.

But that pressure now seems certain to disappear, with Washington apparently ready to accept a fairly transparent ruse that seeks to place all the blame on one Indian official — alleged rogue agent Vikash "Vikas" Yadav.

Yadav was charged in absentia by U.S. authorities last October for his alleged role in the Pannun plot and remains a wanted man.

The manoeuvring between the U.S. and India around Yadav's case bears some resemblance to the dance that Washington went through with Saudi Arabia following the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.