US removes Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea from AGOA trade pact over coups, rights abuses

The United States on Saturday, Jan.2 cut off Ethiopia, Mali, and Guinea from the duty-free trade program with Africa over alleged human rights abuses and the reports of the recent coups within these countries. "The United States today terminated Ethiopia, Mali, and Guinea from the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) trade preference program due to actions taken by each of their governments in violation of the AGOA Statute," the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement on Jan.2. The move came as US President Joe Biden had warned in November last year that Washington is slated to take measures against Ethiopia’s human rights violations in the Tigray region. 

Both Mali and Guinea were removed from the US African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA pact over the recent coups organised by the military leaders. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a United States Trade Act, enacted on 18 May 2000 that boosts the trade partnership and fosters “duty-free” access to the United States market access for the  Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The pact aims to establish stronger commercial ties between the United States and sub-Saharan Africa via several preferential trade agreements. The pact, which was initially slated to last for fifteen years, was reauthorised for ten years more on June 25, 2015, by the former Obama administration. By 2020, over 38 countries became eligible for AGOA.

US 'deeply concerned' by gross violation of AGOA Statute

The US Trade Representative (USTR) announced that “due to the actions taken by each of their governments in violation of the AGOA Statute,” the US President has agreed to kick out Ethiopia, Mali, and Guinea. Washington is “deeply concerned by the gross violations of internationally recognised human rights committed by the government of Ethiopia and other parties amid the widening conflict in northern Ethiopia”, the statement read. The USTR, however, stated that the three nations still had the option to rejoin the pact if they agreed to withhold the statute’s provisions. “Each country has clear benchmarks for a pathway toward reinstatement and the Administration will work with their governments to achieve that objective,” the statement emphasised. 

A sporadic war broke out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region during the November of 2020 against the Tigrayan leadership and rebel factions under the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Abiy. The 13-month-long conflict that destabilised the region witnessed tens of thousands of civilian casualties as 400,000 in Tigray suffered from food shortage and famine. The Ethiopian soldiers also ravaged Somalia as per the reports using a route from neighbouring Eritrea. The US decision reportedly threatens the country’s textile industry as it imports US fashion brands. 

West African economic bloc ECOWAS had imposed sanctions against Mali as the transitional leaders announced that they would not hold democratic electoral process in the country by the February 27, 2022 deadline, a date which was unanimously agreed by Colonel Assimi Goita for an 18-month transition after Mali’s military ousted the former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020 coup. 

Several African nations have imposed travel bans and frozen assets of the Mali military leaders “with immediate effect” since the political takeover. In Guinea earlier last year, the military overthrew their leader President Alpha Conde after the commander of the Special forces Mamady Doumbouya along with the elite Special Forces unit took control of the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry, and detained the 83-year-old president. Coup leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya declared himself as the country’s new leader in a speech made then on state broadcaster Radio Television Guineenne.