L. Fituni, I. Abramova Resource Potential of Africa and Russia's ...

Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA Act) signed into law in 2000
virtually formalized the U.S. claim to an exclusive position in Africa
This is a powerful economic lever enabling the U.S. to bypass many
barriers set up by the EU to markets on this continent. Documents of
the Congress state that Sub-Saharan countries abound in human and
natural resources and the entire continent has a colossal economic
potential and thus is of long-term political importance for the USA. 2
According to some assessments, the putting into effect of
AGOA made the USA the only Western country that has been increasing
export from African countries every year. According to
some estimates, it has increased early in 2005 by nearly 10 percent,
whereas the share of EU countries has dropped by 2.5 percent. True,
the structure of trade has not changed much during the eleven years
AGOA has been in effect: the share of transport equipment in U.S.
export is less than one third; the share of American electronic
equipment is 12 percent; chemical products, 13 percent; food products,
14 percent. More than 70 percent of American import is oil and
petroleum products with minerals and metals accounting for 14 percent
and 15 percent. At the same time, there was a greater inflow of
direct private investments from the USA into African countries.
These investments totaled more than $16 billion as of 1 January
2008.
The USA does not depend on energy resources from Africa as
much as Europe. Still the Congress considers this dependence to be
too significant. With regard to five types of other than energy resources
accounting for between 60 percent and about 100 percent of
American import from Africa, the dependence of U.S. industry and
even defense capability is critical. These are primary raw material
used in the production of rare and rare-earth metals and also chromium,
manganese, platinum and cobalt.
The following table (Table 1.1.1) shows the official US government
(US Department of the Interior) public information concerning
the nation’s dependence on direct imports of certain mineral commodities
in 2010. It is worthwhile to mention that the figures do not
provide the full and exact picture of the situation, since in some
cases the necessary imports come to the US via third countries (and
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