US-African FTAs Would Require Years of Planning, Says GAO

A U.S. transition from the African Growth and Opportunity Act to free trade agreements with sub-Saharan Africa would take “many years to finalize and implement,” said the Government Accountability Office in a report on AGOA released in recent days. That transition would require the U.S. to establish “timeframes to end access to trade preference programs,” and U.S. officials would likely have to keep the scope of the agreements initially limited, said the summary for the report (here). President Barack Obama signed into law a ten-year AGOA renewal in late June, alongside renewal for the Generalized System of Preferences and other trade legislation (see 1506290045).