Tag Archives: Duty Free Quota Free

Delaying the Trade Preference Reform Debate

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By Patrick Costello

As 2009 comes to a close, Congress is poised to pass a one-year extension for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), both of which are set to expire on December 31, 2009. Despite rhetoric calling for reform from Senate Finance Committee Republican leadership, a full-day Congressional hearing on the issue, and the introduction of legislation harmonizing preference programs and extending benefits to non-African LDCs, Congress has decided to pitch the reform discussion to next year. Continue reading →

Congress Daily – Reaction to McDermott Bill Harsh, Muted

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By Peter Cohn

Congress Daily
November 20, 2009

African nations and domestic textile interests wasted no time slamming the first serious legislative attempt in the 111th Congress to overhaul U.S. trade preferences, while Bangladesh, a key player on the opposite side of the debate, was lukewarm. Continue reading →

Will Global Recession Damage US-Africa Trade Ties?

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Published at allafrica.com
by Paul Collier and Rosa Whitaker

Writing after last week’s United States-Africa trade forum in Nairobi, Paul Collier and Rosa Whitaker call on both the U.S. and African nations to craft a meaningful strategy to prevent better trade relations from becoming “a casualty of the recession and of the drift towards political expediency and protectionism.”

This week in Nairobi, Kenya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led a US delegation to the 8th Annual African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum.  This Forum, a meeting of US and African ministers, business and civil society leaders, was created as part of AGOA — the first comprehensive US trade policy towards Africa.  Continue reading →

The New Global Reality: Africans Lead the Way at the AGOA Forum

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Kenyan PM Odinga addresses the AGOA Forum. Source: KICC, 2009 AGOA 8th Forum.

The world has come to expect strong and dynamic leadership from the Obama administration.  In the campaign, they promised to bring change and new ideas to domestic and international policy and to redefine and recalibrate the US’s role in the world. At the 8th Annual AGOA Forum-the annual US-Africa Summit-held this week in Kenya, however, it was the African leaders who broke new ground. Continue reading →