African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) As an Instrument of American Domination over Sub Saharan Africa in Their Trade and Investment Relations

For many years, America did not have any strong trade and development investment in Africa. This changed in the year 2000, with the enactment of Public Act 106-200 which introduced the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) whose intention was and has been to benefit Sub-Saharan African States by removing the trade barriers, duties, levies and quotas that would promote trade between these states. Before the inception of AGOA Africa –US relations had for a long time been limited as a result of past American administrations holding the opinion that Africa as a continent did not fit well in the American domestic foreign policy interests. This however changed when US marines were killed during an operation in Somalia in 1993, and also after the 9/11 attack in New York. Both attacks led to the US paying more attention to Africa because of security concerns. It was not however, until the end of Clinton‟s second term as president that the US put in place policies that were geared towards increased trade with Africa. The most famous of these policies is the AGOA. This thesis sought to establish the impact of trade and investment relations between Africa and the US, the effect the US dominance over SSA in their trade relations and to find out what the US uses to influence and dominate over SSA in the same. The general problem was that despite the existence of AGOA, the US exports remain significantly low number given that the idea the agreement was to better trade relations leading to economic growth in SSA. This research used a phenomenological approach and secondary data from official statistics, reports, journals, literature review articles, government and NGO records media articles and reference books. The theories used for this research were realism, liberalism, complex interdepence theory, constructivism and the world systems theory. It found out that although AGOA has been touted as a success story, the initiative‟s impact has been limited and that just a handful of countries dominate trade under AGOA. It therefore recommends that there must be a balance of trade between the US and SSA and focus sufficiently on supporting economic structural transformation. This will be made possible by reducing the cost of doing business, investing in value addition, simplifying the AGOA approval process, non-revocation of status and harmonization of member positions.