{"id":37213,"date":"2018-03-31T07:58:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-31T07:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/trump-threatens-rwanda-agoa-ban\/"},"modified":"2018-04-03T16:35:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T16:35:21","slug":"trump-threatens-rwanda-agoa-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/trump-threatens-rwanda-agoa-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens Rwanda AGOA ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of Senate, President Trump said that the government of Rwanda continues to impose barriers to United States Trade which affects the exports of apparel products.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am providing advance notification of my intent to suspend the application of duty free treatment to all African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)-eligible goods in the apparel sector for the Republic of Rwanda 60 days after the date of this notification,\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government of Rwanda continues to impose barriers to United States trade, specifically, barriers affecting certain United States exports of apparel products,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to Trump, in spite of intense engagement by United States officials with the Government of Rwanda, the United States has been unable to resolve this matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have therefore determined that the Government of Rwanda is not making continual progress toward the elimination of barriers to United States trade and investment, as required by section 104 of the AGOA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the letter, Trump says that the suspension of duty-free treatment described above is a more appropriate response in these circumstances than the termination of the Government of Rwanda\u2019s designation as a beneficiary Sub Saharan African country under AGOA, as it promotes the continuation of efforts between the United States and Rwanda to resolve outstanding issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the Government of Rwanda has failed to meet critical benchmarks required to address these issues to date, it continues to express an interest in resolving United States concerns,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

He says that he will continue to assess whether the Government of Rwanda is making continual progress toward the elimination of barriers to United States trade and investment in accordance with the AGOA eligibility requirements, as well as whether this suspension of benefits is effective in promoting compliance with those requirements.<\/p>\n

{{Rwanda Stands firm on banning second hand clothes}}<\/p>\n

In February, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Vincent Munyeshyaka told IGIHE that since Rwanda entered in AGOA, they only exported handicrafts products which did not exceed USD one million for the country per year.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually our business with USA under AGOA is 0.05%. It is a small business which we cannot rely on and develop our industries,\u201d he said.
\nAs a way to promote locally made products, particularly textile and shoes industries, Rwanda has hiked taxes on imported second-hand clothes and shoes in order to weaken them on local market, but promote locally made products under \u2018Made in Rwanda\u2019 Programme.<\/p>\n

Munyeshyaka said that banning second-hand clothes is in line with the country\u2019s programme to develop industrial sector. <\/p>\n

Munyeshyaka said that currently made in Rwanda programme is creating between 20,000 and 21,000 of jobs per year.<\/p>\n

He said that the industrial sector comes to the third place in contributing to the development of Rwanda\u2019s economy with 16% after services covering 47% and agriculture 30%.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the move to develop the economy of the country, we need to develop our industry sector. As you know no country has developed without investing in the development of industries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump has issued a notification of 60 days to suspend the application of duty-free treatment for Rwanda through African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) over imposing barriers to US trade in apparel products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-37213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37213"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=37213"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=37213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}