By Lord Marland
Across the world, the international economic order of free trade, stability, and relative peace seems to be fraying, if not collapsing altogether. Over just the past few years, we have seen global energy prices skyrocket due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, inflation driven by COVID-induced spending, and trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China. Old assumptions about tariffs and trade have begun to unravel, as many of the world’s major economies adopt a more mixed or protectionist approach to global trade.
We should not assume that this movement towards a more protectionist outlook has been uniform. In September 2025, for example, China announced the removal of all tariffs on African imports, in the wake of president Donald Trump’s administration’s announcement in the same month of blanket tariffs on most goods imported to the United States.
Nevertheless, long-run trends point towards a trade system in which tariffs are increasingly used as a tool for political posturing and, even when tariffs are not present, major economies are willing to impose extensive non-tariff barriers; according to the Stanford University Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Chinese non-tariff barriers were responsible for 50 percent of the overall reduction in Chinese imports from the United States during the height of the 2018–19 US-China trade war.
Yet, within this uncertainty lies the potential for renewal. Established alliances are being redefined, and new partnerships are emerging in response to shifting global dynamics. For the Commonwealth, this period of transformation may offer a timely opportunity to reaffirm its role as a source of stability and mutually beneficial cooperation – qualities in increasingly short supply.
Notably, the Commonwealth is one of the few international organisations which includes neither the United States, China or Russia – three of the geopolitical ‘big beasts’ who have been most active in shaping the new global order. Post-Brexit, the Commonwealth also maintains limited overlap with the European Union (EU), another of the world’s largest economic blocs, via the EU member states of Cyprus and Malta, whose participation provides valuable institutional bridges between the two communities.
In other words, the Commonwealth is a diverse ‘safe harbour’ for the states that are particularly vulnerable to contemporary global volatility. It is home to some of the world’s smallest states, who are naturally disadvantaged in an international environment where coercive ‘hard power’ is once again re-emerging as the order of the day. It is also home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, such as India, whose long-term development trajectories are constrained by an increasingly protectionist global system.
At the same time, services-heavy economies like the United Kingdom and Singapore stand to lose out in a world where more countries are sceptical of free trade and the free movement of capital. Demographic trends further reinforce the Commonwealth’s long-term economic potential. Nigeria alone is projected to add over 130 million people by 2050, according to the World Bank, making it the third most populous country globally.
Across Asia, Commonwealth members such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are expected to account for a major share of global population growth, collectively adding more than 400 million people over the next 25 years. This expanding population, over 60 percent of whom are under the age of 30, represents both a demographic challenge and a tremendous opportunity: a vast, youthful workforce capable of driving innovation, productivity and domestic consumption across the Commonwealth.
While the ‘gravitational pull’ of the world’s largest economies is often difficult to resist, Commonwealth members share an interest in strengthening their collective position within the global marketplace. Dependence on a single major power like the USA – inclined to impose tariffs unpredictably under the current administration – exposes smaller economies to significant risk. On the other hand, if a country like Nigeria can build a robust network of ties to international partners, it limits the damage that can be wrought by sudden changes from the world’s large economies. This includes, but is not limited to, bespoke free trading arrangements, alignment of regulatory standards, technical cooperation in key industries and mutual recognition of qualifications.
We have already seen a growing appetite for this kind of increased Commonwealth trade cooperation. The latest findings from the 2024 Commonwealth Trade Review confirm that intra-Commonwealth trade grew by nearly US$300 billion between 2015 and 2022, reaching a total of US$854 billion. Intra-Commonwealth investment is even more significant, with a total stock of US$1.7 trillion. While large economies such as the United Kingdom, India and Australia make up the largest individual hosts of that investment stock, the last decade has seen an encouraging diversification of intra-Commonwealth investment.
According to analysis by the Commonwealth Secretariat, nearly half (48%) of all intra-Commonwealth FDI flows in 2021–22 moved towards developing countries. Countries like Barbados, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea feature in the top ten Commonwealth countries by total intra-Commonwealth FDI stock. Meanwhile, between 2021 and 2023, intra-Commonwealth investment created an estimated 70,546 jobs across the Commonwealth’s African members, 34,891 across the Pacific, and a remarkable 193,549 within the Commonwealth’s Asian members, although it is worth noting that a large share of these jobs, some 79 percent, were created in India particularly.
Most importantly, if Commonwealth countries are to benefit meaningfully from deeper intra-Commonwealth trade, they must actively leverage the so-called ‘Commonwealth Advantage’. On average, Commonwealth member states continue to face trade costs around 21 percent lower than those between comparable non-Commonwealth country pairs, underpinned by shared legal systems, business practices and linguistic ties.
It is reasonable to ask whether this advantage, first popularised in 2015, has been tested against more recent data. The latest Commonwealth Trade Review (2024) updates earlier estimates using newer bilateral trade data and confirms that, on average, trade costs between Commonwealth partners remain materially lower. This advantage is not uniform. It varies by sector, region, and language group, and is weaker among Lusophone and Francophone members than among Anglophone peers. As such, it should be understood not as a guarantee, but as a structural opportunity that must be actively reinforced through policy coordination, regulatory cooperation and business-to-business engagement.
Lord Marland is Chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, London, UK.
[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies.]
