SACP supports South African government stance on AGOA
The President of the United States of the America Mr Barack Obama announced on Thursday his administration’s intent and provided 60 days advanced notification to suspend the eligibility of South African agricultural sector products under the “African Growth and Opportunity Act” (Agoa). Agoa was signed into law by the US on 18 May 2000 as Title 1 of that country’s Trade and Development Act of 2000. Agoa is presented as non-reciprocal trade and investment policy aimed at boosting economic growth and development in Sub-Saharan Africa through favourable preferential treatment for imports from eligible countries without reciprocal measures to advantage US exports. However, in reality, Agoa is imperialist both in terms of its content and strategic goal disguised under the fetishist illusion of “free market”. Its extraterritorial imperialist content is now being aggressively pushed by the US against South Africa.
The intent by the Obama administration to suspend South Africa’s agricultural sector products from Agoa’s market access “benefits” in the US is that “South Africa is not making continual progress toward the elimination of barriers to United States trade and investment as required by section 104 of AGOA”. Under section 104 of the US’ Trade and Development Act, the governments of eligible countries must minimise state intervention or involvement – which is coded in the Act as “interference” – in their own economies. This “interference” includes, among other measures, state intervention in the form of subsidies and state ownership of productive assets – referred to as “government ownership of economic assets”.
Yet the US has been paying millions of dollars annually in subsidies to its agricultural sector, including insurance subsidies and payments linked to crop and productivity.
Most importantly, to allow the US to prohibit ownership of economic assets by the state in our country is to allow it to usurp our constitutional right to democratic national sovereignty. This will be tantamount to handing over to US imperialism our right to determine our own development trajectory and decide policies to achieve it.
The SACP is strongly opposed to, and rejects, imperialist domination in its entirety and all its manifestations. South Africa’s independence must be safeguarded in the interest of the completion of our struggle for national liberation and social emancipation. Our democratic national independence and public property rights – the right to collective ownership of productive assets including through the state – are crucial to the success of our second, more radical phase of transformation!