The idea is intriguing and one that, once the prejudice against it is sorted through, has tremendously positive implications for America and its members.
President Donald Trump recently posted that the U.S. could join the Commonwealth of Nations. The idea is intriguing and one that, once the prejudice against it is sorted through, has tremendously positive implications for America and its members.
First, it is important to know what the Commonwealth is not. It is no longer a British organization by power or practice and has not been for decades.
The Commonwealth has evolved mightily through the years and now is a group of 56 independent nations dedicated to political freedom, human rights, free trade especially among members and using English as the language of the institution.
Being a member of the Commonwealth does not declare American allegiance, in any way, to the Crown of the United Kingdom (India, a Commonwealth member, has certainly said the same thing). King Charles is the titular Head of the Commonwealth and while the British monarch is acknowledged in this role by the decision of the 2018 Commonwealth meeting, he holds no formal power over it. The King’s Reserve Powers are held only for nations that specifically have Charles as their monarch, those being the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belize and ten other smaller nations and even then such powers are mostly a formality. Four Commonwealth member nations even have their own separate monarch.
Most of the other Commonwealth Nations (almost 66% of them), are republics like the United States as opposed to constitutional monarchies and many of those republics have vastly different policies (i.e. African member nations being much more socially Conservative as opposed to Britain, Australia, etc.
