President Joe Biden wants to remove Uganda, Gabon, Niger, and the Central African Republic from a special trade program between the US and Africa.
President Biden is saying that these countries did really bad things to people or they’re not becoming more like a democratic country. The US made a special deal in 2000 that lets certain African countries sell things to the US without paying taxes.
President Biden said that Niger and Gabon, which are currently under military control after takeovers this year, can’t be in the special trade program because they’re not working towards having fair political choices and good laws.
He also said Uganda and the Central African Republic are being removed from the program because their governments did really bad things to people.
In May, the US talked about possibly taking Uganda out of the program and putting sanctions on them because they made a law that’s very harsh towards LGBTQ+ people.
Even though the US tried to talk with these countries a lot, they didn’t fix the things the US was worried about for the special trade program, Biden explained in a letter to the US House of Representatives.
The four countries haven’t said anything about this news yet. This happened right before South Africa was going to have a big meeting about the special trade program this week.
Starting next year, these countries being removed from Agoa will likely hurt their economies. Agoa helped them sell things to the US, which boosted their economies, created jobs, and helped them grow.
The Central African Republic won’t feel it much because they didn’t sell many things to the US, but they bought a lot from the US, so they already had a big difference in trade.
Uganda sold $174 million worth of things to the US last year, Gabon sold $220 million, and Niger sold $73 million.
Uganda’s President Museveni said some US companies stopped buying clothes from Uganda because of the anti-gay law. He said, “The gay issue in the US is affecting our clothes sales. They canceled some orders.”
In August, President Museveni stopped the buying of used clothes, which mainly affects the US because they send a lot of second-hand clothes to Uganda and other African countries.
Now, the US is also taking action against Niger and Gabon because they have military leaders in charge. The US won’t give them most of the foreign help they used to get unless they make their governments more like a democracy.
This is not the first time this happened. Before, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea were also removed from Agoa when there were takeovers by the military in those countries.