{"id":5430,"date":"2018-07-30T08:46:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T13:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/?p=5430"},"modified":"2024-08-09T18:28:47","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T16:28:47","slug":"united-states-trade-representative-outlines-plan-to-negotiate-model-free-trade-agreement-with-sub-saharan-african-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/2018\/07\/30\/united-states-trade-representative-outlines-plan-to-negotiate-model-free-trade-agreement-with-sub-saharan-african-country\/","title":{"rendered":"United States Trade Representative outlines plan to negotiate model free trade agreement with sub-Saharan African country"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/agoa.info\/forum\/15446-17th-agoa-forum-july-9-12-2018-in-washington-d-c.html\">17th African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum<\/a>, hosted by the United States for sub-Saharan African countries, took place in Washington, D.C. from July 9 to 12, 2018. The event was titled Forging New Strategies for U.S.\u2013Africa Trade and Investment.<\/p>\n<p>In his statement in the opening plenary on July 11, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer set out to address \u201cone very specific new strategy\u2014the Trump Administration\u2019s desire to <a href=\"https:\/\/agoa.info\/news\/article\/15470-statement-of-ustr-robert-lighthizer-at-the-opening-plenary-of-the-2018.html\">negotiate a model free trade agreement<\/a> with a sub-Saharan African country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The strategy, as Lighthizer outlined, is \u201cbased on three core objectives: (1) pursue a bilateral agreement with a willing partner; (2) ensure that this agreement is crafted so that it can serve as a model that can be rolled out to other willing partners in sub-Saharan Africa in the future; and (3) ensure that the model agreement will reinforce regional and continental integration in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lighthizer stated that no final decision has been made about which country or countries the model agreement would be negotiated with, but emphasized: \u201cWe are serious and intend to move quickly. I hope to announce exploratory talks soon.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips67','Energy Charter Treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips118','Union europ\u00e9enne'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips119','Uni\u00f3n Europea'); <\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 17th African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum, hosted by the United States for sub-Saharan African countries, took place in Washington, D.C. from July 9 to 12, 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[397],"tags":[1911,1963,1986],"class_list":["post-5430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","tag-trade","tag-united-states-us-usa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}