Liz Truss announces new Commonwealth deal to counter Beijing’s influence

“I will ensure the Commonwealth sits at the heart of my plans for Global Britain,” Ms Truss said in a statement released to coincide with the first day of the Commonwealth Games, being held in Birmingham this year.

Outlining her vision for trade agreements, British Prime Ministerial candidate Liz Truss, announced that a government led by her would prioritise a trade template with other commonwealth countries under a ‘New Commonwealth Deal’. File | Photo Credit: Reuters

Outlining her vision for trade agreements, British Prime Ministerial candidate Liz Truss, announced that a government led by her would prioritise a trade template with other commonwealth countries under a ‘New Commonwealth Deal’. Ms Truss is currently Foreign Secretary and faces her former cabinet colleague and erstwhile Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in an internal Conservative party contest for the position of party leader and Prime Minister.

“I will ensure the Commonwealth sits at the heart of my plans for Global Britain,” Ms Truss said in a statement released to coincide with the first day of the Commonwealth Games, being held in Birmingham this year. The Foreign Secretary said her initiative would offer an alternative to Beijing’s influence.

“As one of the largest groups of freedom loving democracies, we must ensure there are clear benefits to remaining a member of the Commonwealth and offer nations a clear alternative to growing malign influence from Beijing,” she said, adding that prioritising trade within the Commonwealth would strengthen economic and security ties within the group and also give U.K. businesses access to one of the largest trading blocs.

Her campaign said that Ms. Truss believed that the Commonwealth, “the largest group of nations that does not contain either Russia or China”, had an increasingly important role to play in geopolitics.

“She believes trade and investment has a key role to play in stopping the growing Chinese influence where Beijing has used investment as a part of its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’,” a spokesperson for Truss said.

The U.K. and India are hoping to come up with a draft free trade deal by Deepavali (end October) this year, a deadline that was described as “arbitrary” by the British House of Lords International Agreements Committee last week.

Commerce Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam had said last week that trade talks between the two countries were on track and would be concluded by August 31.