Trade Controls and Policy

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has served as the cornerstone of the U.S.-Africa commercial relationship for more than two decades but it is set to expire on September 30, 2025. While the legislation’s unilateral trade preferences have provided economic benefits for countries across sub-Saharan Africa, AGOA as a whole remains underutilized. To ensure continuity in U.S-African trade ties, the United States must grapple with the legislation’s potential reauthorization now, with a particular focus on how the utilization of AGOA might be improved.

Just a renewal of AGOA won’t be enough to achieve this ambitious vision, though. Instead, the Biden administration should double-down on its partnership with AGOA beneficiaries and ensure that each country makes greater use of the program, including through National AGOA Strategies, in a manner that promotes regional and continental value chains.Continue Reading How the Biden Administration can Make AGOA More Effective

The 2018 AGOA Forum—named for the African Growth and Opportunity Act passed in 2000 and extended three years ago to 2025—could be a turning point in U.S.-African commercial relations. AGOA abolished import duties on more than 1,800 products manufactured in eligible countries sub-Saharan Africa (those with established or making continuous progress with market-based economy,

Opportunity in Africa abounds. Half of the world’s 25 fastest-growing economies are on the continent and according to the United Nations (UN), half of the anticipated global population growth between now and 2050 will occur in Africa. Upwards of 800 U.S. companies have a presence in South Africa alone. Yet, challenges remain: only 35 percent

In response to “positive actions” taken by the Government of Sudan over the past six months, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced today an amendment to the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations (“SSR,” 31 C.F.R. Part 538) that effectively suspends virtually all of the U.S. sanctions against Sudan by authorizing

For Africa, at stake in this election of Donald Trump is the strong bipartisan consensus in Congress that has been the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward the continent for the last three administrations.

This consensus, supported by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, was predicated on the notion that Africa has opportunities worth U.S. attention and

This past June, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy held a hearing to discuss U.S. sanctions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The United States, the European Union, and the United Nations impose far more sanctions on Sub-Saharan African targets than on any other region, and these sanction regimes have been changing over

As the currency crisis plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015 continued through the recent holidays, Nigerians have learned that they can have their naira, but they can’t spend it too. Nigerians saw several restrictions on foreign exchange (“forex”) put in place, limiting what they could do with their naira. Triggered by the dive in oil prices

In late 2013, the administration of then-President Goodluck Jonathan made a bold bet: that it could jumpstart the country’s ailing automotive industry through a comprehensive—and controversial— industrial policy, known as the National Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP). Although the policy is still young, there are now promising signs that these efforts to revive the once-vibrant