By Bill Martin, Co-Chair ACAS
20 July 1998
The trade and investment legislation known as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act has already been approved by the House and is coming up for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee this week. ACAS, along with many of our African allies and US groups like TransAfrica, the AFL-CIO and Public Citizen, believes this legislation is worse than no bill at all.
We encourage our members to actively oppose the bill.
We attach to this message background material that documents the problems with this legislation in its current form. This includes a background briefing, entitled “Dictated Trade,” that explains the principal problems with the legislation. We also provide excerpts from the eligibility requirements contained in the bill, which demonstrate the strict conditionalities to be imposed on African states.
We urge you to contact your Senators and asked them to vote against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (S. 778).
Senate and other Washington DC addresses can be obtained from our web site
Further information, including statements by other African and US organizations, is also available on our ACAS web site as well as Public Citizen’s extensive site on the bill: the Public Citizen web site