President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama
President Barack Obama’s visit to South African shores – the first US Presidential visit to South Africa in a decade – would be a “moment of promise” as the leader aimed to make good on a stated aim of strengthening ties with the African continent.
Obama, along with his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, will visit South Africa as part of a June 26 to July 3 three-country African tour, which also includes Senegal and Tanzania.
US Embassy spokesperson Jack Hillmeyer told Engineering News Online that Obama’s upcoming trip would be kept simple, with the three visits focusing on three key themes. These were advancing economic growth in Africa, supporting Africans’ demands for democratic governance and engaging next-generation African leaders.
The President’s agenda – much of which had not yet been released, owing to security precautions – included meetings with leaders from government, including his South African counterpart President Jacob Zuma, as well as business and civil society leaders and African youth, to discuss strategic partnerships on bilateral and global issues.
Obama, who visited South Africa in 2006 as a senator, has been criticised for having had too little engagement with Africa during his first term as US President, when he only travelled to Ghana. Last year, Obama launched a campaign, dubbed ‘Doing Business in Africa’, as a follow-up to his administration’s ‘US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa’.
Department of International Relations and Cooperation spokesperson Clayson Monyela told Engineering News Online that the diplomatic trade visit to South Africa was an “endorsement to South Africa and a demonstration of the strategic relationship” formed between the two countries.
He noted that Obama’s business delegation would engage their South African counterparts to explore ways of boosting trade and trade relations, while outlining new areas of doing business.
Former US diplomat in Africa and East Asia and Daily Maverick contributor J Brooks Spector commented that the three countries Obama chose to visit offered wide possibilities for trade and investment.
“This is a big trip for Africa, people on the continent should make better use of it,” he noted, referring to the opportunities for agreements and potential trade growth benefiting the continent as a whole.
Spector said the visit would put a spotlight on trade and would likely result in several “side” agreements.
News of the Africa trip comes as legislation to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) trade arrangement beyond 2015 was under consideration by the Obama-led administration.
Last year, in a visit to South Africa, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Obama administration remained committed to renewing Agoa before the act expired in 2015, emphasising that the US was committing its support.
But Spector noted that no measures to kick off hearings and discussions to extend Agoa had been proposed to the US Congress as yet.
“Part of the challenge is that the federal Budget is not flush, there is going to be very little support to increase fiscal support to Africa,” he pointed out.
The Act significantly enhanced US market access for 40 sub-Saharan African countries, providing duty-free access to the world’s largest economy on 6 400 tariff lines.
South Africa was currently the US’s thirty-sixth largest trade partner, as trade between the two countries reached $22-billion in 2011.
US goods exports to South Africa in 2011 reached $7.3-billion, up 29.5% since the preceding year, and 137% since 2000, while US goods imports from South Africa totalled $9.5-billion during 2011, which marked a 15.7% increase from 2010, and 126% since 2000.
The US goods trade deficit with South Africa was $2.2-billion in 2011.
The first lady had visited South Africa and Botswana independently.