The President-elect of the United States of America Donald J Trump main trade policies focuses on empowering only the American working class. Trump promised to keep American jobs only within the United States and for Americans only. His roadmap to achieving these set of objectives include placing heavy taxes on Chinese goods, the end of Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement a pact that unites about 12 countries in the world.
A lot of people echoed their support for Trump resulting in the atypical election which ushered him in as the president-elect. Analysts have warned that should Trump implement his campaign promises, the globalization of the world as we know it might change affecting small countries and firms which depend on free trade.
Throughout the length of the campaign, Trump rarely made any insinuations that trade of the United States will improve with Africa. Trade was at an all time high when President Barack Obama was at the helm of affairs. The African growth and opportunity Act ws instituted to ensure such happened. The consensus with was renegotiated in 2016 allows for a duty-free carriage for thousands of commodities from several countries from the region. Under the consensus, the United States President is authorized to remove any country from the duty-free passage. The rhetorics of the President-elect Donald Trump of eliminating any trade deals that are not for Americans must have African leaders thinking.
The general thought is most imports from the African continent are between natural resources and inconsequential commodities thus the belief that the Trump administration will not tamper with the agreement earlier reached. Trump’s plan to do away with the Trans – Pacific Partnership might altogether auger well for the trade with the African continent.
The African continent can do away with all these wishful thinking and trade with each continent country and to do so, they need to remove all stumbling blocks to a united continent. This belief might have instituted the continental free trade zone pushed and promoted by the African Union with a goal of removing bottlenecks in attaining a one market continent.
In conclusion, if the continent shuns the one market idea, then it most certainly should get ready to be relegated to the background in the global economy. The only way the continent can survive a Trump presidency is for the member countries to do business with each other.