The United States’ Biden administration gave a big fillip to the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) this week. The US Trade Representative Katherine Tai revealed in an interview on Monday at the Semafor Africa Summit that her agency was working on signing a memorandum of understanding with the AfCFTA countries to expand the U.S.-Africa trade relationship.
Then, on Tuesday, the US Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Africa Business Center said it signed an MoU to launch a trade and investment working group between the U.S. and Africa to help boost the private sector’s impact on the free trade area.
The AfCFTA, which was ratified on Jan.1, 2021, is the world’s largest free trade agreement. It covers some 1.4 billion people and aims to boost intra-African trade.
But its launch has been hampered by the economic fallout from the pandemic and several key countries have only partly ratified the agreement due to concerns around technical issues.
The US clearly sees the AfCTA as a way to re-energize its own business and trade relationships with Africa.
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a Clinton-era piece of legislation aimed at strengthening trade ties between Washington and the continent, is set to expire in 2025. Tai said she wants to better align AGOA with ACFTA's ambitions. She said she sees AGOA as "foundational" but added that there were real opportunities for innovation and expansion in U.S.-Africa trade.
