Last Ditch Push As U.S. – Africa Trade Pact AGOA Expiry Nears

By All Africa

With the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that has anchored U.S-Africa relations since 2000 set to expire on September 30, prospects for extension or renewal grow increasingly slim. Nonetheless, supporters of the trade pact hold out hope that a compromise might still be attainable. Dr. Bob Wekesa from the African Centre for the Study of the United States at Wits University in South Africa, in an AllAfrica guest column outlines three possible scenarios.

Among those lobbying Congress to act are African Ambassadors in Washington, DC. The potential expiration of the legislation “is an immediate threat to millions of dollars in investment and hundreds of thousands of livelihoods across Africa and in the United States,” Solo Andry Lantosoa Rakotomalala, Madagascar’s Amba