Editorial | A Commonwealth umbrella

Three years ago, as he searched for a global perch for Britain in the wake of Brexit, Boris Johnson, the UK’s then prime minister, settled on the Commonwealth.

That was around the time that Jamaica launched the unsuccessful bid of its foreign minister, Kamina Johnson Smith, to become secretary general of the Commonwealth by ousting the incumbent, Baroness Patricia Scotland.

Then a community of 54 countries (prior to the entry of Gabon and Togo) the Commonwealth had a third of the world’s population, 60 per cent of whom were 30 or younger. It included the developed countries of the UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand as well as emerging economies like India, South Africa and Malaysia. Its combined GDP of US$13.1 trillion was forecast to increase US$19.5 trillion by 2027.

“You only have to look at the sheer scale of economic expansion in many of the club’s biggest members to see why the Commonwealth trade advantage is going to become ever more important for British jobs and livelihoods,” Mr Johnson wrote in the British newspaper, The Telegraph. And, he hoped, British influence.

Added Mr Johnson: “That is why we are mobilising the UK’s regained sovereignty to sign free trade or economic partnership agreements with as many Commonwealth countries as possible.”

While Britain’s trade with the Commonwealth has increased since Mr Johnson outlined his vision, things, neither in economic nor political terms, haven’t quite worked out the way he envisioned. The £90.4 billion worth of goods the UK sold to Commonwealth countries in 2023 represented only 10.5 per cent of its total exports. The Commonwealth accounted for 8.5 per cent of British imports – £74.4 billion. Indeed, Britain still sends over half (52 per cent) of its exports to the EU, which is the source of over 48 per cent of its imports.

NEW LEASE OF LIFE

However, global developments may be conspiring, if the opportunity is grasped, to give the Commonwealth a new lease on life. His name is Donald Trump.

The Caribbean members of the Commonwealth, which essentially is the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), should be in the vanguard of driving the new Commonwealth. Indeed, the timing is propitious, since a new secretary general, Ghana’s former foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, will assume office at the Commonwealth on April 1.

Primarily, the Commonwealth is an organisation of former British colonies. Mostly, they share English as a common language and adhere to democratic government.

Mr Trump’s return as America’s president in January has been a disruptive presence and a source of global uncertainty, including the Commonwealth’s members.

For instance, Mr Trump tore up a trilateral trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada (USMCA), who, in 2023, were responsible for nearly five per cent of global trade: US$1.6 trillion. US-Canada bilateral trade was US$773 billion in 2023.

In its place, except for a few carve outs, Mr Trump imposed a 25 per cent across-the-board tariff on imports from USMCA partners. He has also threatened to place hefty duties on goods from Europe, including the UK, which has been keen on negotiating a trade agreement with the US.

Additionally, Mr Trump has floated the idea of annexing Canada and referred to the country’s former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as “governor”.

The US president has also stoked tensions with America’s European and NATO’s partners by cooling US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

In the Caribbean the Trump administration has caused anxieties with its threat to yank the US travel visas of officials whose countries use Cuba’s medical missions in their domestic health systems. That is in addition to the hurt caused in poor countries across the world by the cutting of social aid provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

And critically for small developing islands states like those in the Caribbean and the Pacific for whom climate change is an existential threat, Mr Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate agreement. He has simultaneously loosened regulations that were aimed at slowing the emission of greenhouse gases.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising the first trip abroad by Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, was to France and Britain to meet “reliable allies”. In the past, it would have been a quick hop across the border to meet the US president.

POSSIBILITY OF REMAKING

Herein lies the possibility of an opening for the remaking of the Commonwealth.

Canada and Britain feel vulnerable by Mr Trump’s manoeuvrings over trade and the security blanket it provides to its NATO partners. Further, while they have not spoken too loudly, Australia and New Zealand are concerned about Mr Trump’s tariff threats and the price that he might demand for America’s security cover in the Asia/Pacific region.

The point is that the old Commonwealth, the dominions, feels vulnerable because of Donald Trump. They are now more likely to be open to a deeper, more substantive partnership with the new Commonwealth, though not along the British power-centric model that Mr Johnson appeared to have in mind.

Commerce between Commonwealth countries is unlikely to replace that between individual members and the USA. But there are probably opportunities to accelerate intra-Commonwealth trade, which is projected to surpass US$1 trillion in 2026, from US$854 billion in 2022.

Moreover, as Mr Johnson observed in his 2022 Telegraph article: “And the Commonwealth comprises over a quarter of the total membership of the United Nations: together we have the weight to exert global influence. In the past, the Commonwealth’s quietly effective diplomacy helped to hasten the end of apartheid in South Africa.”