The Trump administration supports a one-year extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), according to a White House official, offering a boost to the decades-old trade pact set to expire at the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the support, odds for renewal, before its expiration, of the Clinton-era program \u2014 which has been strained by President Donald Trump\u2019s imposition of unilateral tariffs ranging from 10% to 30% on African nations \u2014 remain long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
AGOA, which promotes duty-free access to the US for goods from sub-Saharan Africa, has been an important trade stimulant since its implementation in 2000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa\u2019s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in September appealed for an extension to the program, a call echoed by the trade minister of Lesotho.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is likely to be a \u201cmajor drop\u201d in apparel and tuna exports from countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Cape Verde, Lesotho and Eswatini, according to research by the International Trade Centre in Geneva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa \u2014 the continent\u2019s largest economy \u2014 faces a 17% decline in shipments, with losses concentrated in metals, vehicles and chemicals, the ITC said in an analysis sent by email on 25 September.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, trade under AGOA has waned in recent years as other countries including China have ratcheted up competing exports and Trump has moved ahead with country-specific tariffs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s imposition of reciprocal tariffs using emergency powers already effectively killed off AGOA,\u201d Capital Economics said in a 26 September note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNonetheless, a formal end to the program would be symbolic and, alongside the imposition of tariffs and slashing of aid, further underline that (under President Trump at least) the US is disengaging with Africa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Countries that stand to benefit from the expiration of AGOA include Angola \u2014 one of Africa\u2019s top oil producers \u2014 and Senegal, thanks to its exports of critical minerals including titanium and zirconium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former has been exempted from new US tariff measures, while zirconium will face a 10% levy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe country is the third-largest supplier of zirconium to the US, behind South Africa, which will now face 30%, and Australia, which also faces 10%. Senegal\u2019s competitive position has therefore improved, and demand in the US is not expected to contract sufficiently to offset this effect,\u201d the ITC said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Trump administration supports a one-year extension of AGOA, but the US tariffs have already effectively killed the programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":814826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[18336,3281,10022],"class_list":["post-838598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-agoa","tag-tariffs","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838600,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838598\/revisions\/838600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}