I’ve long had the idea that the United States should join the Commonwealth of Nations. Based on the eligibility criteria, there’s no reason why we can’t. I think it would be a good way for our next Democratic administration to embrace internationalism and join together with other countries with a British colonial background. With the United Kingdom, it could serve as a goodwill gesture to help repair the Special Relationship from the damage done by the Trump presidency.
To be very clear, I’m not advocating the United States become a Commonwealth realm with the Queen as head of state. Rather, I’m suggesting we become a republic within the Commonwealth like India.
What do you all think? Is this a good idea or am I off my rocker?
I’ll have to ask the OP to explain his/her work. Pakistan and India were granted independence at the same time, and both were members of the Commonwealth. Pakistan later left the Commonwealth entirely, while India continues to be a member. Please discuss the advantages India currently enjoys over Pakistan by continuing to recognize the British monarch as head of state.
I think it would be fairly useless, but I agree that if the other members felt that it would be a nice goodwill gesture then there’s no reason not to join, but they don’t, and that’s not a big deal.
Nitpick: Pakistan is a full member of the Commonwealth. They left in 1972 (over, IIRC, the admission of Bangladesh, which had seceded from Pakistan) but rejoined in 1989.
The only former members of the Commonweealth (other than countries that no longer exist) are Ireland, the Maldives and Zimbabwe, and two of those three have outstanding applications to rejoin.
Nevertheless, the basic question is a good one; what advantages are supposed to accrue from the US joining the Commonwealth?
The OP stated India is “a republic within the Commonwealth.” Do all members of the Commonwealth not recognize the Queen as head of state?
In any event, what is the benefit to the United states, or for that matter, to the other states in the Commonwealth. From what I can gather from this article in the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Commonwealth acts something like the United Nations, with some international sporting events added in.
The Commonwealth is a bit more complicated beast than you seem to think.
They all recognise QEII as UK Head of State.
They don’t all recognise QEII as their Head of State.
No. There are 53 member states of the Commonwealth. The British queen is head of state in I think 16 of them (including the UK itself, obviously); the rest have their own heads of state, whether monarchs or (mostly) presidents.
The British queen is also the “Head of the Commonwealth”; as such she symbolises the free association between the member states of the Commonwealth, but the position gives her no role in any of the member states.
Nope. Up until India, the monarch was the head of state for all members. India wanted to remain in the Commonwealth but did not want the monarch as their head of state. ( The Indians had opted for a republican parliaentary system.)
The agreement that was reached was that all members recognised George VI as " head of the Commonwealth", but members could be republics. King George had no constitutional functions under the Indian constitution, unlike countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
That agreement enabled the modern Commonwealth, most of whose members are republics, not monarchies.
The Commonwealth is an informal talking-shop that also provides a framework for various sorts of collaborative good works in (mostly) education, research, environmental matters and social and economic development. These can be multilateral or bilateral co-operations.
It provides a forum giving a rather louder voice to small states that in other institutions struggle to make themselves heard, and its membership overlaps with a number of regional international groupings, which can be useful for spreading ideas informally.
Hard to see how either party would benefit, especially if your Congress started setting all sorts of conditions on how the Commonwealth organisations do their work.
There seems to be an awful lot of confusion about what the Commonwealth is.
It’s an informal club. Nothing more, nothing less, useful for trade talks and diplomacy. We get an ‘Olympic Games Light’ every four years. It means countries other than the G7 get together every so often for a chat.
The Queen does not appear on coins, she is not Head of State for each country, she’s merely the Party Hostess, chosen as such by the individual Members of Commonwealth. She rules over no one, the Brits don’t get special privileges. The fact that members are former British colonies is just a convenient qualification for membership. Every club likes its members to have something in common, a shared set of values (even if some members sometimes flout those values).
Nitpick: the Commonwealth has no role or function in relation to trade talks. It’s not a trading bloc of any kind and never was. Membership does not involve or imply any special trading terms with other Commonwealth countries.