U.S. Senator In Bid to Stop South Africa Hosting AGOA 2023

U.S. Senator Jim Risch has tabled legislation in Congress, aimed at shifting the 2023 AGOA forum that will be hosted by South Africa, to another country, because of South Africa's close association with Russia, Daily Maverick reports. The move is seen as a precursor to South Africa losing some of its AGOA benefits.

A South African delegation led by Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition Ebrahim Patel and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, went to Washington, DC in mid-July 2023 for discussions with the U.S., in a last-ditch attempt to retain preferential trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

This visit came after a group of United States Democratic and Republican lawmakers wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asking him to move the 2023 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) forum away from South Africa. The legislators warned at the time that the country stood to lose its AGOA status, which allows South Africa duty free trade on the first 25% of its goods exported to the U.S., wrote Esther Rose for AllAfrica on July 13, 2023.

The legislators accused South Africa of supporting Russia's war in the Ukraine and of supplying weapons to Russia for that purpose. The South African government has denied the supply of weapons and maintains that it has adopted a neutral stance on the war.