USTR, African Economic Leaders Open 2024 AGOA Forum, Emphasize Reauthorization
At the opening of the 2024 African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum, U.S. and African trade leaders emphasized the importance of reauthorizing AGOA before its expiration in 2025 and discussed changes they would like to see to it to increase utilization, strengthen supply chains and support economic growth.
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Parks Tau, minister of trade, industry and competition for South Africa, cautioned the U.S. against using AGOA as a “tool for political change.” He said that ensuring stability and predictability offers more opportunities for long-term investment. “There is some irony that removing countries from AGOA directly and immediately hits the private sector,” he said. “[It is] ordinary people who lose jobs and income.”
Tau and Albert Muchanga, the African Union commissioner for trade and industry, touched on several economic goals they said they hope AGOA will focus on in the future.
AGOA can be strengthened by ensuring it promotes foreign direct investment in the African continent, especially in value-added activities, Tau said. And it must be reauthorized in a way that complements the 2019 African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement and its goals, intercontinental economic integration and export diversification, he said.
Muchanga also emphasized the importance of clustering in ensuring different sectors reach the global marketplace.
Multiple speakers touched on the trade of critical minerals. Tau said that more than half of the world’s critical minerals come from Africa. That trade will "provide a unique opportunity for the current path toward integration" of African countries into global supply chains, he said.
And a key goal of AGOA is to "develop sustainable, reliable and transparent critical mineral supply chains," agreed Jose Fernandez, U.S. undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment.
"Above all, a key goal and theme throughout the forum is how we can make a goal more inclusive, more responsive and transformative for all segments of our societies," U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said. "We want our people's lives to change for the better."