David Davis, the British government’s Brexit secretary until he left his post this week, said in a 2016 speech on the referendum: “This is an opportunity to renew our strong relationships with Commonwealth and Anglosphere countries. These parts of the world are growing faster than Europe. We share history, culture and language. We have family ties. We even share similar legal systems. The usual barriers to trade are largely absent.” [...]
President Trump may agree to a new trade deal with Britain, but it’s unlikely that Britain would decide the terms, a prospect that is fraught with political risks for the British government. Such a deal raises the specter of British voters eating chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef while watching the revered National Health Service being opened up to American multinationals.
For Australia and New Zealand, trade links with China and Asia are much more important than those with Britain. And Canada, as a member of Nafta, has long been oriented toward the massive American market. Security and intelligence cooperation among these states and Britain in the so-called Five Eyes group is critical, as is NATO membership, but this kind of cooperation does not require a new Anglosphere bloc.
In reality, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand show no inclination to join Britain in new political and economic alliances. More likely, they would rather continue to work within the existing institutions — like the European Union and the World Trade Organization — and remain indifferent to, or just perplexed by, Britain’s calls for some kind of formalized Anglosphere alliance.
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