Since the time both political parties-Democratic and Republican-settled for their standard-bearers, my WhatsApp updates have been awash with sound bites, internet memes, and torrents of foul-mouthed abuse from both candidates. I’m frequently questioned by a couple of friends and acquaintances about my fixation with the United States election, and I’ve had to explain how I have skin in the game. One of my mentors, an American, whom I’ve worked with for more than a decade, went into a state of depression upon receiving the news that Donald Trump won the November 8, 2016, election. He had to undergo counselling and psychotherapy for months. His depression was a heavy drag on our work.
Even after the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump-adjured uninspiring but redolent with accusations, vitriol and tactless exchanges, today’s election, based on overall prediction, remains a toss-up to be won by a razor-thin edge. CEO of the Open to Debate Foundation, Clea Conner, who suggested an Oxford-style debate, expressed her disappointment with the debate in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. She said the debate “devolved into political theatre, with combative candidates, biased media, agenda-driven moderators and a fixation on social-media sound bites.” Their respective conversations with podcasters have also been vapid as pertinent questions are either parried or replied to evasively while they continue to double down on vilification.
The outcome of the election would have serious trade implications for Africa. Apart from enhancing income-generating capacity, driving down prices and supporting economies of scale, trade can lift millions of people out of poverty in poorer nations and spur companies to better innovation and products. Free trade is prominently featured in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Target 17:10 of the SDG 17 summarised as ‘Partnership for The Goals,’ emphasises a “multilateral trading system which promotes a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organisation, including through conclusion of negotiations under its Doha Development Agenda.” Also, the SDG 2b target aims to “correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round.”
Africa has greatly underperformed in the volume and content of its trade despite its population growth in the last five decades. With its exports currently accounting for a paltry 2.3 per cent of global trade, Africa’s trade has contracted (up from five per cent of global trade in the 1970s) and stagnated for over three decades and half.
To forecast world trade implications under a second Trump presidency, the best predictor would be his antecedents. Globalism discard, reciprocity and return to protectionism will be the hallmarks of Trump’s trade policy. Tariff became the tool he employed to extract new deals from other countries in his first term. And his campaign rhetoric has been vexatious and opprobrious, especially when he constantly argues that maximising America’s economic power would entail slapping levies on foreign countries. Many countries currently fear that a second Trump presidency will up the ante. Recall that Trump instigated a US trade war with China after his tariff on washing machines and solar panels, then steel and aluminium. Now, he’s threatened tariffs of up to 60 per cent on made-in-China goods and also broached the idea of stripping China of its most-favoured nation status at the World Trade Organisation.
On the soapbox, Trump, through misleading information and flawed economic mastery, continues to sell to his cult-like followers the notion that America’s economy is in jeopardy. By comparing America’s GDP in 1990, which was two-fifths of the G7, with now (which is half of G7), it is right to say that America has left other developed cum industrialised economies in the dust. According to The Economist, “America’s output per person is now about 30 per cent higher than in Western Europe and Canada, and 60 per cent higher than in Japan—gaps that have roughly doubled since 1990.” Since 2020, its economy has grown by 10 per cent while other G7 members have experienced sluggish growth. Some have escaped recession by a whisker, while their current economies are topsy-turvy.
In fairness to the Trump administration, it began drafting a Free Trade Agreement with Kenya until President Joe Biden came in and set it aside in favour of the Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership. Trump did unveil a ‘new Africa Strategy’ to advance US trade and commercial ties with African nations. Its surreptitious underpinning was to counter the influence of America’s adversaries like China and Russia on the continent. At the announcement of the strategy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, then National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton, said, “Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa. They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States.” Trump, should he emerge victorious, will compel African countries to jettison Chinese products and embrace America’s as a quid pro quo for trade assistance. In the account of the Executive Director, NYU’s Centre on International Cooperation, Martin Kimani, on Trump’s eccentric way of making deals, he said, “When Trump met the then President Kenyatta in the Oval Office, the first question he asked him right after the courtesies is, how come you’re not doing business with American companies.” A Trump presidency will urge the African countries to reduce import restrictions on US goods and agricultural products, especially the ones that face ‘unscientific barriers’ and put American farmers and producers at a disadvantage. Based on Trump’s modus operandi, any African country that fails to amend unfavourable trade policy to American companies risks brutal trade sanctions.
For Kamala, she has a lot of crossover appeals, from flip-flopping on fracking, to her volte-face on the border wall, to her u-turn on mandatory shift to electric vehicles. It’s still not sure where her leftist policies will lean. If they lean to the far left, that will have huge implications for the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Enacted in 2000 as part of broader legislation to strengthen US trade ties with Africa, AGOA grants sub-Saharan African countries the special right to export certain products to the US tariff-free. In 2023, US trade imports under AGOA totalled $9.7 billion. Due to expire in 2025, Senators Chris Coons and James Risch have co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to extend AGOA until 2041.
Based on the bipartisan support it enjoys in the US Congress, AGOA’s main challenge won’t be re-authorisation but alteration. African governments are already pushing for more flexibility concerning AGOA’s eligibility criteria. A Kamala presidency won’t accede to such a request to lower governance and human rights standards for the Act. In fact, far-left policies of Kamala would radically alter the Act’s qualification conditions to include climate standards, which may reduce the number of eligible countries for AGOA. The reinstatement of certain countries such as Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the continent and previously one of the biggest AGOA beneficiaries, remains pending despite its claims of fulfilling a previous precondition laid down by the US. Its suspension from AGOA in 2022 over the humanitarian crisis in Tigray and nearby regions has led to more than 100,000 job losses in Ethiopia’s textile and clothing sector. A December 2023 United Nations Development Programme report revealed that the impact of Ethiopia’s suspension from AGOA included “an exodus of foreign firms from many of the industrial parks.”
Unlike Trump whose energy policies could be summarised with the slogans ‘drill baby drill’ and ‘frack frack frack’, Kamala could boost Africa’s trade by implementing the recommendations of a policy outlook document written by Zainab Usman and Alexander Csanadi. titled, “How the AGOA reauthorisation process could help diversify US critical mineral supplies.”One of the recommendations is the exemption of eligible African mineral producers from the restrictions of the Inflation Reduction Act. Others include renegotiating a new Critical Minerals Agreement and reframing the US-Africa trade relationship. Based on her amenable character, she can follow through on such recommendations, as her campaign has assembled a 25-strong team to devise a comprehensive US-A policy. On average, a Kamala presidency will be a net positive gain for Africa’s trade and development.