Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: A cloud of uncertainty hangs over an Africa-US trade deal which was to expire by the end of September, with African unions warning that more than a million indirect jobs could be on the line if it is not renewed.
But some trade experts and economists say the end of the 25-year-old African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) could allow African countries to seek potentially beneficial deals with other partners, or boost trade with each other.
“AGOA is the breadbasket of many people in very critical sectors,” said Hod Anyigba, chief economist at the International Trade Union Confederation Africa (ITUC-Africa), which has 17 million members. Last-ditch talks on the future of AGOA have been taking place in Washington, but the fate of the deal is still unclear, although Lesotho’s trade minister said last week that the United States plans to extend it by a year.
The Trump administration supports a one-year extension of the trade initiative, according to a White House official. Since coming to office in January, the administration had not publicly stated a position on AGOA, a law passed in 2000 by President Bill Clinton’s administration to deepen trade with subSaharan Africa and boost economic development.
It grants duty-free access to the US market for thousands of African products, including motor vehicles and parts, textiles and clothing, minerals and metals, agricultural products and chemicals exported by eligible African countries.
But President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have plunged the fate of the AGOA into doubt. However, African governments, manufacturers and unions have been lobbying the US administration for a last-ditch temporary extension.
“Across both houses of Congress, both parties are keen on AGOA, but it’s a new US politics where the president is very much… the key decision-maker,” said Matthew Parks, parliamentary coordinator for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, South Africa’s largest union federation.
