The Washington Post published in its hard copy edition on 17 April 2025 an editorial titled "Save America's Great Link to Africa."
America's key trade agreement for Africa, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), is due to expire in September this year unless Congress votes for another extension. The program's future is uncertain because the Trump administration prefers bilateral trade deals over multinational agreements such as AGOA. The editorial makes the case for renewing AGOA.
The prospect of a Gbagbo trial before the International Criminal Court may discourage the former president from surrendering, said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to neighboring Burkina Faso. The prosecutor’s office of The Hague- based court said it has begun investigations of potential crimes in Ivory Coast.
Cocoa Crop
“Someone’s trying to find a place to dump him and give some sort of informal agreement not to put him before the ICC,” Shinn said in a phone interview from Washington. “If he’s convinced they are going to go after him he’ll hang on until the last dog dies.”
Even in countries such as Kenya and Ivory Coast, which experienced decades of stability after independence, ethnic tensions have led to political crises in recent years. “Ethnicity is holding its own as a potent political force in Africa,” says David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. “Few African countries have managed to overcome this scourge.”For my complete response written early last December to McClure’s questions, see below:
A key test of the resource curse will be Ghana, a democratic country with a much larger and more diverse population than Botswana. Ghana began pumping offshore oil from its Jubilee field in December. Flanking Ivory Coast on the east, Ghana has functioned as a democracy for nearly two decades and peacefully transferred power between rival parties in 2000 and 2008. Though corruption is a problem, the country is considered less corrupt than more developed countries like Italy, Thailand and Brazil according to Transparency International. “Ghana is an important test case if it can be the first in Africa to maintain relatively democratic government and avoid the oil curse,” says ambassador Shinn.
“Enlightened African leaders will spur democratic reforms,” says Shinn, the longtime U.S. African diplomat. “Without enlightened leadership that really believes in democratic principles, I doubt there will be much improvement. Too many leaders are interested in remaining in power at any cost.”
