Kenya, US Launch a Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership

Kenya and the US have launched a Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) to replace an agreement President Donald Trump's administration had inked with Nairobi.

Under the STIP, the two states will start work to develop a roadmap for engagement in 10 key areas among them agriculture, digital trade, action on climate change, and trade facilitation and customs procedures.

“Kenya and US governments will commence working within three months to develop a detailed roadmap for engagement in each of these issues,” Trade Cabinet Secretary Betty Maina said in a statement on Thursday.

Kenya and the US also agreed to work together to fight corruption, introduce good regulatory practices, promote small and medium enterprises and workers’ rights, and support the participation of women and youth in trade.

“The two countries will discuss approaches to integrate MSMEs into international trade. The two sides will initiate periodic technical best practices exchanges and roundtables on micro, small and medium enterprises,” Kenya’s Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and Enterprise Development said in a statement.

The launch of the strategic partnership comes months after the Biden administration said it would review the Trump-era bilateral trade negotiations with Kenya in 2020 over a potential free trade agreement (FTA).

The two nations had commenced talks in July 2020, with a view to draft a comprehensive agreement that would act as a model for similar pacts between the US and other African countries.

Kenya is keen to ink a trade deal with the US ahead of the expiry of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) in 2025. AGOA gives Kenya and 40 other sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the US market for over 6,000 products.