President John Dramani Mahama said he will use his upcoming tenure as Chair of the African Union (AU) to bring together the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the AU to work together on trade and take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
He said such a coalition would become the biggest trading bloc in the world and give the Global South an equal seat at the global table.
President Mahama was speaking on Wednesday (September 23, 2026) during a bilateral meeting with the President of Suriname, Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA, where the two countries signed of a new cooperation agreement expected to serve as the basis for closer collaboration between the two countries.
Economic cooperation
President Mahama affirmed that, the historic Ghana-led UN resolution on reparatory justice, which was passed through a coalition spanning Africa, the Caribbean, South America and the entire African diaspora, had provided a stronger platform for deeper economic cooperation.
"Following our historic resolution at the UNGA, I think that the coalition that came together to make it happen spanned Africa, Caribbean, and South America, and the whole African diaspora. So that resolution has given us a stronger platform for us to work together, not only on reparations, but also on bringing our economies together," President Mahama said.
He said countries of the South continued to face the same structural challenges and were still considered as spoils of war and less endowed nations.
"All of us are considered as spoils of war, and we are considered as less endowed nations. And so the only way we can break out of that stranglehold and have an equal table, chair the table, is for us to work together," he said.
President Mahama said Suriname had been working to bring CELAC and the African Union closer, and that under his AU Chairmanship he would pursue that agenda aggressively.
"I know Suriname has been working to get CELAC and the African Union to come even closer together. And I think that is something we must continue. I visited Jamaica recently, and I said, I'm going to take the chair of the AU. One of the things we want to see happen is to get CELAC, the Caribbean, and everybody come closer together.
"In terms of trade, already we have the African Continental Free Trade Area. I don't see why we can't expand that to include a larger area, CELAC, Caribbean, and Africa. That will become the biggest trading bloc in the whole of the world,” he said.
Bilateral relations
President Mahama recalled the long-standing relationship between Ghana and Suriname dating back to the early years of independence, with exchange of visits by former heads of state, and said it was time to recapture that spirit.
He said the two countries already had diplomatic agreements for diplomatic and service passports and expressed hope that visa-free travel would soon be extended to ordinary citizens.
"I hope that we'll work together to eventually open it up so that even one day Surinamese can travel to Ghana without visa and Ghanaians can travel to Suriname without visa," he said.
The President thanked Suriname for its support in passing the UN reparatory justice resolution and briefed his counterpart on the follow-up Accra Next Steps Conference, which adopted 19 major commitments and set up three panels “the High-Level Panel, the Expert Panel and the Panel on Restitution”.
President Mahama also used the occasion to invite the Surinamese President to Ghana's 70th Independence anniversary on March 6, 2027, describing it as the first sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence.
