Africa’s External Trade Relations: From Dependence to Agency?

Abstract

Africa's development and growth challenges will increasingly be shaped by Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) as new continental blueprints for integration. These challenging blueprints must also be situated in the role and shifting interests of Africa's external trade and development partners. This relates particularly to its historically-defined engagements with the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) which have only served to reinforce and underscore Africa's marginality and dependence. These engagements are rendered more complex with the entry of China and India onto the African geo-political landscape, especially whether these two countries provide an alternate regime for trade and development cooperation that give African countries greater decisionmaking agency, policy space, and strategic choice. Given these shifting vectors, this article will assess Africa's trade relations with two of its most important traditional partners, the EU and the US; and with two of its most important emerging partners, China and India. These analytical portraits have direct implications for Africa's future industrial development and economic growth and the extent to which it can collectively move away from a history of external dependence to determining its own destiny.