With the US-founded African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) having just been extended to September 30, 2015, the big question of the moment in the SA and other Agoa-trading communities in Africa is: Will it be extended beyond that date? With the current US regime that should be answered: Yes! US president Barack Obama has promised to support the push to have the Agoa further extended. Indeed, during his recent SA visit he publically said he was behind moves to “renew” and “improve” the trade pact. And the Agoa is the US government’s signature trade initiative with sub-Saharan Africa. It is strongly committed to expanding trade and investment, and to supporting broad-based economic opportunity and prosperity in the sub-Saharan region. Another question that has had a positive answer was that of just how long Agoa should be extended? Rosa Whitaker, formerly the US assistant trade representative for Africa and one of the primary forces behind the original Agoa, used the word “indefinitely”. And she was not alone. Other voices expressed much the same sentiment. And certainly those in the Agoa-recipient African nations – whose ambassadors to Washington, including SA’s, recently issued a joint statement asking for 10 years. Not the same as the hoped-for life sentence – but well on the way towards that. So everything seems to point to a longer life for the Agoa initiative. But this may depend on the renewal of a previously expressed condition, and one that may already have been aired at this week’s Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum – a lengthy title most often shortened to the Agoa Forum. This was a joint venture between the governments of Ethiopia and the US, and was held on Monday and Tuesday in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with all the Agoa-recipient African states expected to attend. The theme of this year’s forum is “Sustainable Transformation through Trade and Technology.” And the ministerial-level event was planned to include a highlevel dialogue on the future of US-Africa trade and economic cooperation. And that future might contain that condition to Agoa’s extension beyond 2015. There are certain American negotiators whom the international press feel may demand at the forum that African countries should give the same preferential treatment to US exports to Africa. The US trade representative Michael Froman phrased it in the lead-up to the Ethiopia conference as “issues of reciprocity” – and noted that it would be raised at the Agoa Forum. It would be US leverage on African governments to give US exporters the same level of not-so-one-sided market access they are to give the Europeans under the proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs). The European Union (EU) is currently negotiating these with several African countries – deals that would permit European goods to enter African markets dutyfree in exchange for the same treatment of African products sold to Europe. The Americans might want the same. You may know by now just how the hopes for a muchextended life for Agoa have gone. Or whether this extended life will be dependent on that two-way duty-free deal. INSERT American negotiators may demand at the forum that African countries should give the same preferential treatment to US exports to Africa.
