Uganda's Museveni Defiant Over Removal From US Trade Pact

November 5, 2023

Uganda's president said Sunday that the US government had overestimated its value to his country after Washington decided to remove the East African nation from a major trade pact over human rights violations.

The United States said last week it was cutting Uganda as well as the Central African Republic (CAR), **on and Niger from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) from January 2024.

In a letter to Congress, US President Joe Biden said that the governments of the CAR and Uganda had both "engaged in gross violations of internationally recognised human rights".

But President Yoweri Museveni struck a defiant note on Sunday, telling Ugandans "not to be over-concerned by the recent actions by the American government in discouraging their companies from investing in Uganda and on removing Uganda from the AGOA list."

"As far as Uganda is concerned, we have the capacity to achieve our growth and transformation targets, even if some of the actors do not support us."

"Some of these actors in the Western world overestimate themselves and underestimate the freedom fighters of Africa," he said on X, formerly Twitter.

The World Bank announced in August it was suspending new loans to Uganda, and last month the US State Department warned about the risk of doing business there.

Museveni has accused the World Bank of using money to try to "coerce" the government to drop the controversial legislation.

https://www.barrons.com/news/uganda-s-museveni-defiant-over-removal-from-us-trade-pact-2f5d88b2