Report

The African Growth and Opportunity Act An Empirical Analysis of the Possibilities Post-2015

“This report provides an analysis of outcomes of U.S.-Africa trade under five categories of post-2015 scenarios. These scenarios look at the trade and income implications of i) not extending AGOA beyond 2015; ii) expanded product eligibility for AGOA; iii) revisions to the currently eligible countries; iv) a restructuring of AGOA to resemble the
economic partnership agreements (EPAs) of the
European Union; and v) the effects that a possible EU-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) could have on AGOA or an EPA-like situation, with an additional scenario examining how a continental free trade area(CFTA) would play into such an integrated trade environment.
The results indicate, first of all, that should AGOA not be extended and current AGOA-eligible countries revert back to the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), then trade losses would be distributed in a very unequal fashion across the continent
due to the variation in AGOA-eligible products that are exported by different countries. The results also show that expanding product eligibility for AGOA would only have small effects on the exports coming from AGOA-eligible countries— unless complete duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) market access was granted because the most import- sensitive sectors for the U.S. (e.g., sugar, cotton and clothing) are still where Africa would gain the most.”