President Barack Obama will visit Ghana next week after talks with other world leaders in Italy on restoring global economic growth and completing the long-running Doha round of world trade talks.
Mr. Obama, appointed U.S. trade representative, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, who said "the world's poorest developing nations have a special place in the Obama trade agenda."
Mr. Kirk will travel to Kenya in early August for an annual trade forum with sub-Saharan African countries.
Here are some facts about U.S. trade with sub-Saharan African countries:
U.S. trade with sub-Saharan African countries remains small, despite U.S. duty-free treatment for most of the region's exports. Sub-Saharan African countries accounted for just slightly more than 1 percent of total U.S. exports and about 3 percent of total U.S. imports in 2008.
U.S. imports from sub-Saharan Africa grew about 28 percent in 2008 to $86 billion, but higher oil prices accounted for a large chunk of that increase.
Oil accounted for about 80 per cent, or $71.2 billion of U.S. imports from sub-Saharan Africa last year. The United States also imported about $3 billion of platinum, $2 billion of autos and auto parts, $1.6 billion of diamonds and $1.3 billion of iron and steel from the region.
The U.S. exported about $18.6 billion worth of goods to sub-Saharan Africa in 2008. The top export was $2.2 billion in motor vehicles, followed by grains and oilseeds, oil and coal products and aircraft and aircraft parts.
West African countries, in the Doha round of world trade talks, have pushed for deep cuts in U.S. cotton subsidies, which they believe have depressed world cotton prices and have robbed them of potential export markets.
The U.S. has agreed in principle to deeper and faster cuts in cotton subsidies than for other crops. But its insistence that major developing countries like Brazil, India and China make better offers to open their markets to U.S. farm and manufactured goods has prevented a Doha round deal.
Many African countries like Congo, Gabon, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe are sugar producers. Their access to the U.S. sugar market is restricted by a quota that is fiercely defended by the politically powerful U.S. sugar lobby.
Kirk, a former Dallas mayor, is from Texas, a U.S. cotton and sugar-producing state. He has met with trade ministers from Angola, Nigeria and Mozambique since taking office in March and traveled to South Africa in May for the inauguration of President Jacob Zuma.
Congress passed the African Growth and Opportunity Act in 2000 to boost trade with the continent. Mr. Kirk will travel to Kenya in early August for the annual AGOA meeting with sub-Saharan trade ministers.
US EXPORT COUNCIL PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO US COMPANIES SEEKING ACCESS TO HIGH GROWTH MARKETS OVERSEAS. http://usexportcouncil.com/
