Africa and The Middle East

The U.S. and Kenya next week will hold their first in-person talks under the Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership they agreed to last year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said on Friday. The “conceptual discussions” will be held Feb. 6-10 in Washington, DC, USTR said in a statement ; Assistant USTR Connie Hamilton will lead the U.S. side. The STIP was launched last July , when USTR Katherine Tai and her counterpart at the time, Minister of Investments,...

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday reintroduced a proposal crafted to boost U.S. competitiveness across Africa as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean. The “Increasing American Jobs through Greater Exports to Africa Act” would “force better coordination between U.S. government agencies and departments, establish comprehensive strategic goals and marshal private investments to improve U.S. exports to Africa,” according to a Feb. 1 statement issued by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). It also “focuses on Latin America and the...

Economic integration efforts underway in Africa and new ideas about decades-old U.S. trade policy could provide a host of options for bolstering Washington’s cornerstone trade policy program with sub-Saharan African countries, analysts and former senior officials tell Inside U.S. Trade . The African Growth and Opportunity Act, first signed into law in 2000, “has done more than people give it credit for, but it has not done nearly enough that it could and should do,” former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative...

The developing African Continental Free Trade Area is at risk of being undermined by U.S.-led trade talks in the region and influenced more by the U.S. than by Africans, says an international trade law professor who focuses on Africa. For James Gathii, who has taught at Loyola University Chicago School of Law for more than a decade, bilateral trade agreements between the U.S. and African countries could spell trouble for developing economies on the continent. He fears a rush of...

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat intend to establish a “platform for ongoing work,” USTR Katherine Tai said on Monday. During an event hosted by the news organization Semafor Tai said she and Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat Wamkele Mene have had several “very productive” conversations over the past year and were preparing to sign a memorandum of understanding to create the platform. During an event later on Monday at Howard...