US backs barly extension of trade pact with Africa, envoy says

US President Joe Biden’s administration backed the early extension of a program that will enable more than 30 sub-Saharan African nations to retain their duty-free access to the world’s biggest economy, an envoy said.

“We have indicated our support for an early reauthorization” and an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which expires in September 2025, Joy Basu, the deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of African Affairs, told a press briefing on Monday. 

African trade ministers last week attended an AGOA Forum in Washington where they called for the program to be extended by the end of this year. American trade concessions have in part been directed at countering Russia and China’s influence on the continent.

The ministers also called for the preferential market-access deal to be extended by at least 16 years with minimal changes to stabilize commerce and investment relations and preserve regional value chains, the African Union said in a statement last week. 

Basu said a a deal that runs for longer than the current 10-year one is under consideration.

While US senators introduced a bill in April to extend AGOA until 2041, its beneficiaries are still awaiting formal guidance about its future. 

“Congress is completely in charge of the legislation,” Constance Hamilton, the US trade representative for Africa, told the briefing. I am very confident that it will happen before AGOA is set to expire in 2025.”

Two-way trade between the US and countries that qualify for market access under AGOA exceeded $46 billion in 2022, with $30 billion worth of goods shipped to the US in that year. As much as $10.2 billion worth of goods traded under the preferential trade access program.