The relevance of African free trade agreement in the context of U.S. trade aspirations

The U.S. has accused China of using bribes and strategically opening its purse to hold African countries captive in the long run, when the states cannot repay their debt in time. For instance, China took over Zambia’s airport, state-owned power plant ZESCO, and its national broadcasting corporation as the country was reeling under several billion dollars in debt that it could not pay in time. 

Similarly, China has taken over the port of Mombasa in Kenya, after the state defaulted on a $2.3 billion loan that it borrowed from China to build a standard gauge railway line between Mombasa and its capital Nairobi. China has also used similar means to force Djibouti to let Beijing establish a military base in the country, very close to the existing U.S. base, Camp Lemonnier.

In December 2018, the U.S. government made it clear that the Trump administration’s new African strategy will not be about “indiscriminate assistance across the entire continent.” The focus will be on ensuring that the U.S. taxpayer money is used efficiently and in furthering U.S. interests on African soil, while also making sure the African countries maintain their autonomy and stay economically independent. 

The AfCFTA, which was signed in 2018 and officially began on May 30, will remove tariffs on at least 90 percent of the goods traded among the member countries. This is expected to proliferate intra-African trade, which accounts roughly for 17 percent of all the continent’s exports. The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has estimated that intra-African trade would likely increase by 52.3 percent by 2020 due to AfCFTA. 

For the U.S., AfCFTA reduces its headache with creating separate frameworks for different African countries, which the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative pointed out in a 2016 report, would likely not be effective if it does not “include strategies to improve the conditions for trade.” The report spoke of creating building blocks on improving policy areas like trade facilitation, intellectual property, labor measures, market access and transparency – a direct consequence through a free trade region like AfCFTA.