[CTC] Trump signals resumption of trade talks with Nairobi

[Arthur Stamoulis]

https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/trump-signals-resumption-of-trade-talks-with-nairobi-5003210

*Trump signals resumption of trade talks with Nairobi*

US President Donald Trump’s administration has signalled its intention to
restart talks for a comprehensive trade agreement with Kenya, insisting a
deal will inform negotiations with other African countries as the African
Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) expires.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Congress last week that a
meeting with his Kenyan counterpart, Lee Kinyanjui, took place in
Washington at the beginning of the month, laying the ground for the
resumption of talks.

A trade agreement with Kenya, which would be the first US free trade deal
in Sub-Saharan Africa, comes as governments around the world reeled from
new tariffs imposed by Mr Trump, which sowed fears of a global trade war
and recession.


Trade experts said the US tariffs were likely to signal the end of the
Agoa, a US trade legislation passed in 2000 that allows duty-free exports
for thousands of products from Africa, which expires in September and had
been widely expected to be renewed in some form.

Mr Greer, who serves as Mr Trump’s principal adviser and negotiator on
trade matters, termed the initial conversations with Mr Kinyanjui as
“fruitful”.

“I had my counterpart and Trade minister from Kenya last week and we sat in
my office and we had a good talk, and he said he said he wanted to engage
with the United States. He understands our concerns, but he also
understands the need to move forward,” Mr Greer told the Committee on Ways
and Means of Congress.

“It was a very fruitful conversation and I look forward to speaking with
him again. He wants to work with us, they want to have some kind of
agreement.”

The congressional Committee on Ways and Means is the principal body in the
House of Representatives that shapes laws on taxation, tariffs and other
fiscal matters.

Mr Greer was responding to questions from the chairman of the Trade
Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, Adrian Smith, on
initiatives taken by the US Trade Representative (USTR) Office to ensure
trade deals with Kenya and the United Kingdom progress to conclusion.

Mr Smith accused the previous administration of Joe Biden of dragging its
feet on concluding trade negotiations initiated by Mr Trump during his
first term in the White House.

Kenya opened negotiations for a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
with the first Trump administration in 2020.

The talks were discontinued by the Biden government in favour of the
US-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) aimed at lifting
non-tariff barriers to trade.

“During President Trump’s first term, he teed up agreements with the United
Kingdom and Kenya. I am eager for these agreements to be brought to
fruition,” Mr Smith said.

“Over the last four years, the Biden administration trade agenda veered
from slow work to complacency to a non-binding framework.”

The Republican congressman added: “This [delay in concluding trade
agreement] was particularly concerning given Kenya stood to set an example
for other Agoa beneficiaries, which are capable of negotiating their own
reciprocal agreements.”

The Biden-era STIP talks kicked off in July 2022, but a deal had not been
struck by the time he left office, with the teams having covered eight
rounds of negotiations as of last September.

Latest disclosures from the State Department for Trade indicate the
negotiations under STIP were 50 percent done, missing the 2024 target for
completion.

The STIP framework was focused on investment and inclusive growth, which
was seen as having the potential to benefit workers and businesses in both
countries.

This differed from the FTA framework initiated by the first Trump
administration, which would have followed a comprehensive traditional
market access route, covering areas such as rules of origin and reciprocal
removal or reduction in tariffs.

STIP negotiations agenda centred on non-tariff trade issues such as
liberalisation of agriculture, anti-corruption, digital trade, workers’
rights, environmental issues, cross-border trade facilitation and promoting
the growth of small and medium enterprises.

The references to “reciprocal agreements” by Mr Smith and “our concerns”
[that other countries were not offering reciprocal tariff concessions] by
Mr Greer could be a pointer that the Trump administration is keen on
restarting talks under a bilateral FTA.

The Biden administration had insisted that a bilateral trade deal under
STIP between Kenya and the US was not aimed at graduating East Africa’s
largest economy out of Agoa, signalling its intention to extend.

Mr Trump has, however, invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs in a bid to address “absence of reciprocity
in our bilateral trade relationships”.

This has seen Kenyan goods entering the US, such as apparel, slapped with a
10 percent tariff.

African countries which were initially hardest hit by the US tariffs
include Lesotho (50 percent), Madagascar (47 percent), Mauritius (40
percent), Botswana (37 percent) and South Africa (30 percent). Washington
later paused tariffs above 10 percent for 90 days to allow negotiations,
but excluded China, which imposed immediate retaliatory tariffs.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20250418/9417b1ef/attachment.htm>