Opinion
A Blueprint for the U.S. – Africa Partnership
Secondly, we must work on improving origin rules: This would allow for changes in supply chain production with intermediary African value-added reduced from 35 percent value added requirement; allowing African products to be cumulated with all preferential imports in meeting these origin requirements.
Thirdly, it could be an idea for the U.S. to designate any willing regional economic community in Africa for AGOA eligibility.
Here, as opposed to individual countries, AGOA benefits would be designated to a REC and all its membership. This has immediate advantages when it comes to deepening regional integration, and also in ensuring that the United States works through these regional bodies to achieve both its strategic and economic objectives. This would only work if the RECs want to work with the U.S. in ensuring good governance, particularly maintenance and strengthening of democratic institutions.
Relatively, removing countries from AGOA must only be seen as a last resort considering that there are negative consequences to innocent parties such as U.S. businesses and even ordinary Africans such as the Malagasy women supplying the U.S. market that lost their jobs when Madagascar was removed from receiving AGOA privileges in 2009.
This is an opportunity for the U.S., working with African countries, to be effective and give other measures such as travel restrictions, freezing assets or suspension from participating in regional bodies an opportunity to work.
Lastly, on top of designating RECs, if AGOA preferences were made permanent, this should also work to deepen regional integration if conditions were given a 10 – 15 year period period to negotiate appropriate reciprocity at which time Africa should be in a position to negotiate as a group.
One should, under the circumstances, recognize African commitments to ensure increasingly effective performance under AGOA through their AGOA strategies and U.S. should consider joining those countries with such strategies through AGOA Compacts where both sides would cooperate in meeting AGOA objectives as so clearly described by Ethiopian consultant, Eyob Tolina.
Trade Initiatives Outside AGOA
We must also deal with aspects outside AGOA. This will mean that an intensification of U.S. economic efforts must go alongside those political ones under Trade Africa to help Africa achieve her integration goals for the continental free trade agreement (CFTA) and the customs union as planned by the Abuja Treaty of 2004. In the same vein, we must also invite the European Union to join the U.S. in developing a common approach to reciprocity – one that could reinforce rather than undermine integration.
Additionally, there is a sense that Congress has of recent resolved to support the African Union’s progress in establishing tight deadlines for the completion of African efforts to create FTAs and Customs Unions. Some have also expressed concern over the EU’s efforts to coerce African countries into signing premature reciprocal agreements that would disrupt regional integration and put US exports at a competitive disadvantage.
