Africa and The Middle East

The U.S. is developing a “template” for trade with Sub-Saharan African countries, prompting several to ask the Trump administration to extend a pause on steep new tariffs, according to the South African government. In a July 1 readout of recent talks with U.S. officials in Angola, South Africa’s Trade, Industry and Competition ministry said “one of the key issues that emerged … is that the U.S. is developing a trade-matters template which will be the basis for its engagements with...

President Trump will soon send Japan a letter outlining the tariff rates he will impose on goods from the country because the two sides have been unable to reach a trade deal, the president said Monday, with major outstanding issues including rice market access and U.S. auto tariffs. “To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have...

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) last week announced she would soon introduce a bill to authorize the White House to negotiate a trade agreement with Middle Eastern countries. Cantwell announced the legislation during a June 26 event hosted by the Washington International Trade Association. She said she hopes her proposal can help reduce tensions in the Middle East, roiled by recent U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and what she called a “tenuous” ceasefire agreement between Israel...

Top State Department officials this week touted the development of a new trade paradigm with Africa centered on “commercial diplomacy” as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to recalibrate U.S. engagement with the continent. During the U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Angola, Troy Fitrell, the senior official in State’s African Affairs Bureau, said the Trump administration is redoing U.S. engagement with Africa because “the world has changed, the United States has changed, [and] markets have changed.” As part of the Bureau...

Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) hoped to renew the African Growth Opportunity Act and reauthorize the Generalized System of Preferences via his panel’s recently released budget plan but was waved off by the White House before its release, according to industry sources. The Senate Finance Committee majority last week issued its portion of a Republican budget and tax-cut focused bill that is moving through Congress via reconciliation. The text did not include any trade measures. But Crapo had...

African countries should band together to negotiate a trade deal with the U.S. that averts steep new tariffs while collectively rallying support for the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, according to a former negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Katrin Kuhlmann, a Georgetown University Law professor and faculty director of its Center on Inclusive Trade and Development, said African countries will fare better if they come to the U.S. as a bloc rather than...

House Ways & Means trade subcommittee Chair Adrian Smith (R-NE) is hopeful that lawmakers will work to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act and other soon-to-lapse or expired trade-preference programs – and that the administration might be moved to support them, with some updates. Smith discussed a need for legislative action on a host of trade issues during an event on Tuesday at Georgetown Law School, contending that new trade deals under negotiation could be made more durable if...