Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants on November 06, 2015, 05:16:22 PM
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If you are looking for a legitimate bone to pick, the way he uses with AGOA would be one.
US to suspend SA duty-free farm trade status
The US plans to suspend trade benefits on agricultural goods from South Africa, intensifying a dispute over that country’s restrictions on farm imports that had pitted farmers in the two nations against each other.
The action follows a US review of South Africa’s status as a full beneficiary of a preferential trade agreement under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which eliminates import levies on more than 7,000 products ranging from textiles to manufactured items.
The US determined that South Africa has continued imposing barriers to US trade, including American agricultural exports, according to a letter President Barack Obama sent to the Congress on Thursday. The suspension will become effective in 60 days, according to the notice.
The value of duty-free South African farming exports to the US market was $176 million in 2014, just a fraction of the $1.7 billion of trade under AGOA, according US Department of Commerce data. While that proportion may be low, the suspension threatens to strain trade relations between the nations.
The trade program has helped South Africa more than double its exports to the US since 2000. Shipments under the agreement accounted for more than a fifth of the nation’s exports to the US last year, according to data compiled by the Tralac Trade Law Centre, based in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town.
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/industry/us-to-suspend-sa-duty-free-farm-trade-status/?utm_content=buffer725c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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Terminator:
How is it a "legitimate bone"? The article you link to notes that
AGOA, renewed by US lawmakers in June, benefits 39 sub- Saharan African nations. To remain a beneficiary, countries are required to eliminate barriers to US trade and investment, operate a market-based economy, protect workers’ rights and implement economic policies to reduce poverty.
If the South Africans are not fulfilling those conditions, which presumably all have been aware of, then why should they be allowed to benefit from the program? Is there something that entitles them to access the US market on AGOA terms if they are not willing to adhere to the conditions of that program? Absent certain types of agreements, AGOA is more like a charity case, to which the only response should be gratitude.
At the heart of the dispute between the US and South Africa were American chicken and cattle farmers who wanted South Africa’s government to remove trade restrictions imposed to protect the local industry from a flood of cheaper imports.
I think the South Africans are quite right to want to protect their country from "a flood of cheaper imports". But even as they do so, they should be aware that, beyond some WTO generalities, nothing entitles them to markets elsewhere and especially not with special programs like AGOA.
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Terminator:
How is it a "legitimate bone"? The article you link to notes that
AGOA, renewed by US lawmakers in June, benefits 39 sub- Saharan African nations. To remain a beneficiary, countries are required to eliminate barriers to US trade and investment, operate a market-based economy, protect workers’ rights and implement economic policies to reduce poverty.
If the South Africans are not fulfilling those conditions, which presumably all have been aware of, then why should they be allowed to benefit from the program? Is there something that entitles them to access the US market on AGOA terms if they are not willing to adhere to the conditions of that program? Absent certain types of agreements, AGOA is more like a charity case, to which the only response should be gratitude.
At the heart of the dispute between the US and South Africa were American chicken and cattle farmers who wanted South Africa’s government to remove trade restrictions imposed to protect the local industry from a flood of cheaper imports.
I think the South Africans are quite right to want to protect their country from "a flood of cheaper imports". But even as they do so, they should be aware that, beyond some WTO generalities, nothing entitles them to markets elsewhere and especially not with special programs like AGOA.
It's not necessarily a legitimate bone but more of a beef. I have always seen AGOA sold as some altruistic gesture by the US. Obama could just as easily ignore the South African restrictions given the relatively tiny impact this market has on the US. In the spirit of helping an African. But he seems to go at them hammer and tongs like his life depended on it. He is obviously entitled to do what he is doing. But a case he could have looked the other way without really harming either party.
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It's not necessarily a legitimate bone but more of a beef. I have always seen AGOA sold as some altruistic gesture by the US.
The duty-free component may certainly be viewed as "altruistic". But AGOA is more than that; it is intended to help only those Africans who behave themselves, as indicated by the conditions for eligibility:
market-based economies; the rule of law and political pluralism; elimination of barriers to U.S. trade and investment; protection of intellectual property; efforts to combat corruption; policies to reduce poverty, increasing availability of health care and educational opportunities; protection of human rights and worker rights; and elimination of certain child labor practices.
Indeed, if you look at the countries that have been completely thrown out of AGOA---CAR, Eritrea, DRC, etc.---it has largely been for bad behavior, rather than trade issues. South Sudan did not last very long, and Burundi is looking at suspension in 2016.
Obama could just as easily ignore the South African restrictions given the relatively tiny impact this market has on the US. In the spirit of helping an African. But he seems to go at them hammer and tongs like his life depended on it. He is obviously entitled to do what he is doing. But a case he could have looked the other way without really harming either party.
(1) No, he could not ignore it. If you followed the debate that preceded the AGOA renewal in June this year and the subsequent passing of the bill, it was very clear that something had to be done about South Africa:
The US Senate has voted, by 97 to 1, to renew the Act but with strict terms for South Africa.
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/45e4ac804862d71aabcdef1b3b18eadf/US-votes-in-favour-of-renewal-of-AGOA-with-strict-terms-20151505
The real clincher is in the bill finally agreed to by Senate and House of Reps and signed by Obama: Sec. 105 makes it quite clear that something has to be done about South Africa. Another thing is that this is being paraded as an issue about poultry and suchlike stuff; in fact, the extension debate showed that USA companies have a long list of complaints, of which meat is just one. Plus there is the fact that SA did agree to meet certain "meat commitments" by mid-October this year, but then seems to have done nothing in that regard.
(2) Obama is in fact being quite "nice" and giving the South Africans yet more time to deal with issues that they have long been aware of. In his letter:
I am providing 60-day advance notification of my intent to suspend ...
I have determined that such suspension of benefits would be more effective in promoting compliance by South Africa with the eligibility requirements listed in section 104 of AGOA than the termination of South Africa's designation as a beneficiary sub-Saharan African country, as it would better promote continuing efforts between the United States and South Africa to resolve these outstanding issues.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/05/letter-president-suspension-application-duty-free-treatment-all-agoa
(3) The South Africans has not even been suspended from AGOA! All Obama's letter says is that he is thinking of suspending them. That's quite different from the sharp treatment that some countries got (before and in Obama's time) and hardly what I would consider "hammer and tongs like his life depended on it". What's more, the US Trade Representative seems to be hinting that they probably won't be suspended anyway.
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This AGOA monster is a load of nonsense that benefits Asia More because Africans corruption allows Asians to transfer their industries to Kenya and other countries to utilize Agoa exemptions
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MOON Ki,
I stand corrected.
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This AGOA monster is a load of nonsense that benefits Asia More because Africans corruption allows Asians to transfer their industries to Kenya and other countries to utilize Agoa exemptions
Globalcitizen12,
Why do you think that is a bad thing?