WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) delivered a speech at the Wilson Center Africa Program’s Brown Capital Management Africa Forum on the importance of reauthorizing the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Senator Coons is Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In his speech, Senator Coons stressed the importance of increased U.S. engagement with Africa – the youngest and fastest-growing continent – and how AGOA facilitates deeper investment and stronger commercial ties between the United States and sub-Saharan African countries. AGOA is currently due to sunset next year unless it is renewed.

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Read coverage here: Road to AGOA Reauthorization: The Future of US-Africa Trade and Investment, The Wilson Center

Senator Coons’ AGOA Renewal and Improvement Act with U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), introduced in April, would extend AGOA until 2041, giving U.S. investors and African partners much-needed certainty. Senator Coons traveled to five AGOA-eligible countries in March and wrote an op-ed in The Hill on Kenyan President William Ruto’s state visit to the United States in May.

Senator Coons’ full remarks are below:

Senator Coons: As you heard from [Wilson Center President and CEO] Mark [Green] in his introduction, we’ve worked together and respected each other and have done our best to make a lasting difference across, now, several different roles in several different administrations. I first got to know him in his role as ambassador to Tanzania. I worked very closely with him when he was leading USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and I’m grateful for your leadership here at the Wilson Center.

AGOA, next year, turns 25. And so, in just my 14 years in the U.S. Senate, it’s been a majority of the time that AGOA has stood as a remarkable and enduring trade arrangement: duty-free and quota-free access to the U.S. market. Now, lots of folks say that the goal right in front of us should be improving AGOA, because at some point in the future, Africa is going to be this great continent of promise. My argument would be, that moment is now; it has already happened. And there are some who debate it as if it is a hypothetical or [in the] future, but, demonstrably, Africa is the most important continent of this century, and we in the United States need to act like it.

It is the fastest-growing continent; the youngest population. [There are] more than 350 companies across the continent with a market capitalization above $1 billion. Thirty years from now, the middle class of Africa will exceed 1 billion people. One of my favorite little data points for doubting neighbors and friends back home is that there are more smartphone users on the continent than there are in the entire United States.

As you heard, I have worked closely with Republican Senator Jim Risch [Idaho] of the Foreign Relations Committee to introduce the AGOA Renewal and Improvement Act. Our goal [is] to secure this cornerstone of U.S.-Africa economic relations and to lay the foundation for a deeper and more enduring economic partnership going forward. As I suspect everyone in this room knows – but it bears repeating – AGOA is a trade and development program. It provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for exports from eligible countries, encourages investment, and promotes economic development, but eligibility also depends upon good governance and human rights, which I believe has helped incentivize democratic reform and the rule of law.

It’s slated to expire in September of next year. And as someone who worked in the private sector for a global manufacturing company for a decade before first being elected, I’m well aware that supply chain decisions by integrated global companies don’t happen within the month of the expiration of the law. Only in Congress do we think we’re doing our job when we do it at the absolute last possible second, or, maybe we’ll do an overtime extender and we’ll then do it a month from now. Governing by continuing resolution is unfamiliar to the private sector. And so, this work with Jim Risch – to extend it all the way to 2041 – has both an early and a late component; the late component is giving it significant reach so that there is no concern that it will expire in five or 10 years. But we need to do it as soon as possible, so that we don’t risk the loss of this moment.

What is this moment? Well, in a world that is increasingly isolationist and protectionist, it stands as one of the few remaining, long-lasting, reliable market-access mechanisms to the United States market. [There are] businesses that, after the shocks and the dislocation of the pandemic, are looking to diversify their supply chain. A lengthy and early extension of AGOA takes advantage of this moment. But we also have to be mindful that businesses look for predictability.

Businesses have options; so, too, does sub-Saharan Africa. Africa, in the 14 years since I first chaired the Africa subcommittee in the Senate, has dramatically integrated economically with China. Back when AGOA was passed, all of China trade to Africa was $8 billion; $8 billion. 2022 was $280 billion. Those two numbers give you a stark sense of just how dramatically Chinese trade with Africa has expanded and as we all know, they’ve invested far more in African infrastructure in recent years than any other country – in roads and rail, ports and energy and telecommunications. Russia, too, has recently prioritized engagement with the continent, both from a military and diplomatic perspective.

[But] the United States cannot view its engagement with Africa through the lens of great power conflict. That is disrespectful to the relationships that we have had – that we hope to build on with other countries – but if we want to be relevant, if we want to compete, if we want to engage with nations that have options, we have to show up, and we have to show up at scale.

In 2022, President Biden hosted a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The United States and American companies committed $55 billion in investment over the ensuing three years. It was based on economic and diplomatic engagement rooted in respect and shared values. And we need to build upon the successes of that summit: There needs to be a clear commitment to another summit and there needs to be a clear path forward towards implementing some of the recommendations of that summit. Just last month, President Biden hosted a very successful visit by William Ruto, the President of Kenya, and I’ll remind you that his principal and primary ask in the runup was the swift reauthorization of AGOA. Kenya has grown dramatically its capacity to export – particularly in the apparel sector to the United States – and I think this is something that we need to prioritize and do so quickly. 

Look, in absolute terms, AGOA is actually a relatively small trade program. If you exclude oil, it’s about $5.7 billion a year, in the eligible countries. But it’s very meaningful – across the continent, about 1.3 [million], 1.5 million jobs are indirectly or directly supported by AGOA. In Kenya, it sparked the growth of a dynamic new apparel sector; I’ve had the opportunity to visit a number of new light manufacturing companies that are in the business because of the opportunities of AGOA, and it’s driving more investment in both agriculture and manufacturing at exactly the time when every African leader whom I meet looks for more and better jobs at higher ends in the value chain. We have to renew AGOA to reinforce the progress we’re trying to make.

So, what would my bill with Jim Risch be? It would support African governments in developing specific strategies for making the most of AGOA’s benefits so that we can see broader and more diversified participation in benefiting from AGOA’s renewal and extension. It would build on, as Mark Green mentioned, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, so that we see that we’re incentivizing the integration of continental supply chains and enabling more trade between, and among, African countries. It clarifies how eligibility is reviewed and enforced; with clarifying eligibility criteria, it would reduce the frequency of regular reviews; it would strengthen the ability to conduct an out-of-cycle review and would give the President a broader menu of options for enforcement in circumstances where a country seems to be well outside the values framework that we’ve set for AGOA participation.

I think this clarity is important as both the Congress and the President assess some challenging calls like South Africa – given their growing closeness, and some integration issues, with both Russia and China. What the path forward for AGOA looks like – specifically, with relation to South Africa – has been raised over and over by members of the House and Senate. We will not get through reauthorization without directly addressing that. We have had – we have had real progress with Congress recently; concrete progress. There was an AGOA hearing two weeks ago in the Senate; there was a House hearing last week. There’s broad bipartisan and bicameral support for renewal. There will be an AGOA Forum here in Washington, D.C., in late July, as I think all of you may know.

I think passing this bill by then would send an important and timely message with great economic value. But, if somehow, we don’t get this done by then, we need to extend it at least before the end of this calendar year. We should not, once again – as happened before – suffer the dislocation with embarrassment, the consternation, of it coming right up to the end. It’s an essential step, but not the only step … to strengthen U.S. engagement with Africa.

As chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds all of our foreign assistance – USAID, MCC [Millennium Challenge Corporation], DFC [U.S. International Development Finance Corporation], and the State Department – I can say we’re working to modernize economic development through public-private partnerships, through changes to the MCC and the DFC that will help African partners move up the value chain – from mining to the processing of minerals; from basic material production to complex manufacturing. Yes, African countries have many options, but what we offer is far better than the debt-trap diplomacy extended by some of our competitors. I think we need to offer and help countries graduate from AGOA to a durable, reciprocal trading partnership, and I think the STIP [Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership] negotiations with the United States and Kenya are a promising start and should serve as a first step towards the negotiation of a comprehensive free-trade agreement.

Just a few weeks ago, I visited five African countries, all of them AGOA-eligible. And I reminded [Appropriations Committee] Chair Patty Murray [D-Wash.], as we were leaving Angola, that there’d been a remarkable transformation in the attitude towards the United States of [Angola] President [João] Lourenço, a former guerrilla, formerly the leader of a Marxist party, long closely aligned with both the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and the former Soviet Union. And I reminded her as we took off, that, in our conversation, the one thing he asked for over and over was more partnership, more investment, more engagement. Yes, other countries are there in Angola and are looking to take advantage of the opportunities of Angola’s rapid development. The United States should show up; we should be reliable, we should be open-handed, and we should be the strongest possible partner for sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa is the continent of this century; the United States, in a global competition to see which system works best, needs to show up and prove that through the pull of AGOA, through modernizing the MCC and the DFC, and through engagement, engagement, engagement, we have the better model and a better opportunity. And I look forward to working with all of you to make that a reality.