(PHOTO CREDITS: Courtesy THE SITUATION ROOM)
In the first week of February 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Emeritus Raila Odinga attended a widely-publicized Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. On the sidelines of this event, President Kenyatta held a bilateral meeting with his US counterpart President Donald Trump. The occasion was used to officially initiate a free trade agreement (FTA) negotiation between the two countries. On March 23, 2020, the Trump administration, through the Office of US Trade Representative, notified the Congress of negotiating objectives for the reciprocal bilateral trade arrangement. On June 22, 2020, the Kenyan Government, through the Negotiating Principles, Objectives and Scope released by the Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development articulated what Kenya aspires to as the endgame of these negotiations.
The negotiations proper are yet to commence, but there are already many red flags signaling pitfalls ahead. The overall concern is that whichever way we look at it, this agreement, when concluded, will undermine efforts at regional integration at driving seat of which Kenya has been. As a customs union, the East African Community of which we are the largest economy, has a Common External Tariff (CET) regime. This means whatever goods and services enter on a Most Favoured Nation (MFN) or other terms will be deemed to have entered the markets of the other five Partner States, yet these countries – all of them LDCs – are not involved in the negotiations. It also doesn’t sit well with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to which we signed last year. There are other key concerns as below.
