US, Kenya teams begin trade talks amid protests
US, Kenya teams begin trade talks amid protests from smallholder farmers over lack of stakeholder engagement
US, Kenya teams begin trade talks amid protests from smallholder farmers over lack of stakeholder engagement.
Despite objections from smallholder farmers, the Ruto administration has started the negotiation phase of the planned bilateral agreement with the United States, which will replace the outdated African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
The conceptual discussions took place in Washington between February 6 and 10, and the four-day negotiations in Nairobi began on Monday.
Negotiations are taking place on the 11 pillars of the planned US-Kenya Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP), which are being managed by Trade PS Alfred K’Ombudo and Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa Constance Hamilton.
Agriculture trade facilitation, encouraging consumer, business, and worker trust in the digital economy, environmental protection, integrating micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) into international trade, and preventing and combating corruption are some of the areas of attention.
However, despite the US counterpart holding similar events, the Kenya Small Scale Farmers Forum has complained to the Trade Ministry about the lack of stakeholder participation before to the discussions.
“The government has not shared with farmers or any other stakeholders the negotiating texts proposed by either Kenya or the US. We do not understand why the texts cannot be shared,” said the lobby in a statement.
“There is a need to demystify the issues at play to enable farmers to understand what is at stake.”
The United States Trade Representative Office (USTR) sought public views on the proposed deal with Kenya between August and September last year.
The Biden administration has made it clear that negotiations with partners, which include Kenya, will include “provisions intended to eliminate or reduce nontariff barriers that can hamper market access for US agricultural products”.
“The administration will seek to include in these agreements enforceable provisions that build on WTO (World Trade Organisation)obligations, including provisions to ensure that sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures are science-based, developed through transparent, predictable processes, and implemented in a nondiscriminatory manner,” the USTR wrote in the 2023 Trade Policy to the Congress on March 1.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai last month that the Biden administration will “aim to make rapid progress” in negotiations with Kenya in 2023.
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“The Biden administration views this approach as one to be built upon to include other areas of mutual interest and to serve as a model for engagement with other willing countries on the African continent,” Ms. Tai wrote in the report to the US lawmakers.
Trade between the two countries is tilted in favour of the US, which exported goods worth Sh93.43 billion last year while buying merchandise valued at Sh76 billion from Kenya.
Kenya largely exports articles of apparel under the Agoa pact, while mainly importing pharmaceutical products and aircraft parts from the world’s largest economy.
The current Agoa deal, a preferential trade programme that allows duty- and quota-free access to the US market for sub-Saharan African countries, will expire in September 2025.
The discussions for the proposed bilateral deal started in earnest in August 2018 when former President Uhuru Kenyatta made a bilateral visit to the White House.
The former presidents of the respective countries — Mr. Kenyatta and Donald Trump — at the time identified economic development and trade as the pillar of the “strategic relationship” between Kenya and the US.
The visit came on the back of Mr. Trump’s disastrous rhetoric on Africa and had seven months earlier infamously referred to nations in the continent as “shithole”.
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