For three days next week, Windhoek, the Namibia capital, will be teeming with government delegations, CEOs, investors, and innovators from all 56 Commonwealth member states, spanning five continents, and representing 2.7 billion people.
They will gather for a critical event, the first-ever Commonwealth Business Summit (CBS), alongside the Commonwealth Trade Ministers Meeting (CTMM), which will unfold in the shadow of growing global tensions over rising tariffs, supply chain disruptions, and shifting economic alliances.
While the secretariat has declared, with seeming confidence, that the “Commonwealth is stepping forward with a united vision for inclusive, sustainable, and digitally enabled trade”, there is acknowledgement that the meetings are taking place in a climate of severe uncertainty.
“Set against a backdrop of mounting global trade tensions, climate volatility, and deepening investment gaps, these meetings are more than gatherings, they represent a coordinated push to reset trade relationships for a more resilient and inclusive future,” the Commonwealth said on the eve of the Namibia gatherings.
Commonwealth Secretary General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, who will lead her first trade ministerial since taking office in April 2025, noted: “At a time when global trade is being reshaped by uncertainty and fragmentation, the Commonwealth offers something rare: Trusted partnerships, a shared commitment to fairness…”
The message, aimed at the US Administration, is clear: “Across the Commonwealth, we are working together to build a trade system that works for all, one that creates real opportunities for women striving to grow their businesses, for young people seeking decent jobs, and for communities working to overcome economic hardship.”
It will be the first of these high-level meetings since the idea was floated in the British media earlier this year that President Trump was interested in joining the Commonwealth “as an associate member”, even while he was creating distance between the US and other global bodies such as the World Health Organization; Paris Climate pact; North Atlantic Treaty Organization; and the North American Free Trade Area.
Of course, there is no such thing as an associate member in the Commonwealth, and it is unlikely that the US would want to join an organisation that declares all its members are “autonomous communities, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs”.
This equanimity among states, large and small, was reiterated in the last major review of the principles of Commonwealth membership, chaired by our own former Prime Minister PJ Patterson.
We wish the summit every success.
