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Africans need jobs and not aid
Wednesday, November 10, 1999
By BRUCE RAMSEY
When President Clinton comes to Seattle for the World Trade Organization summit, protesters won't be his only obstacle. The poor countries will be here, too. Many have made little use of world trade.
The president needs something to show them -- something like Rep. Jim McDermott's African trade bill.
McDermott's bill would give Africa an opening in the U.S. apparel market. Apparel was the first step up in the ascent of East Asia. It could be a first step for Africa, McDermott said, if U.S. import quotas gave Africa a chance. The quotas are set to expire in 2005, leaving high tariffs. McDermott's bill would open the quota doors now and provide some tariff preferences.
McDermott knows Africa. He lived in Ghana and Zaire. Among his supporters are fellow Afrophiles Rep. Phil Crane, R-Ill., who has been to Africa, and Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., an African American. At one time McDermott even interested Newt Gingrich, who once wrote a dissertation on the Belgian Congo.
But for a long time, the Clinton administration had no interest in the bill. Its attitude, McDermott said, was "don't tell us what to do, we'll do it ourselves." Then Clinton began to plan his 1997 trip to Africa. McDermott's bill gave him something to talk about. It passed the House but died in the Senate.
This year Clinton is playing host to the WTO in Seattle Nov. 30-Dec. 3. Time to pass that bill and make the president look good! It passed the House in July and the Senate last week. The Senate version has some add-ons about the Caribbean Basin, and a booby trap that would require African garments to use U.S. cloth. McDermott is pushing this week for a quick conference before Congress adjourns. Opponents say a conference won't get done until January.
Who are the opponents? First, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen. "We call it NAFTA for Africa, the Africa Recolonization Act," said Mike Dolan, deputy director. Public Citizen's Web page, www.tradewatch.org, says the bill would "encourage fly-by-night sweatshop operators to locate a few more plants in Africa, all of which will close and move to Asia in 2005." Public Citizen supports a bill by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., that is oriented to debt relief.
Second, the AFL-CIO and U.S. textile employers oppose the bill, because they do not like the idea of competing with low-wage Africans.
Third, the aid profession has opposed the bill because they see it as a threat to aid. "They were the toughest opposition we had," McDermott said. "Of course, they raise all these humanitarian concerns -- and all of it's true. But it doesn't change the fact that if you don't give people a job, they can't get on their feet. You're never going to deal with it by sending them sacks of wheat and millet."
This is an argument of special import to the Democratic Party: Development aid has been one of its ideas. And over the past 40 years, Africa has soaked up a mountain of aid.
But does it work?
"The answer to that is no," McDermott said. He favors medical and humanitarian aid. If we can give Africa an AIDS vaccine, he's for it. But he said, "aid does not move any country to economic growth and self-sufficiency."
He appealed to his fellow Democrats: "What FDR said was, 'We're going to try things. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else.'" In any case, there are political realities. This Congress will not expand aid programs or make a grand gesture to cancel African debts.
As for the "NAFTA for Africa" charge, McDermott (who supported NAFTA), said his Africa bill falls far short of that. He admits that jump-starting an African apparel industry would involve low-wage jobs. But they're jobs, he says, with some impatience for those Americans who refuse to accept a program unless it's perfect.
As it is, sub-Saharan Africa gets less than 1 percent of all U.S. foreign investment. A quarter of that goes to one country, South Africa.
Public Citizen said President Nelson Mandela of South Africa opposes the bill because it requires that beneficiaries open their economies. McDermott said ambassadors of 28 sub-Saharan governments support the bill.
Susan Rice, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, praised McDermott effusively at the World Affairs Council in Seattle yesterday, saying the bill was a key to African self-reliance.
Kenyan immigrant Peter Gishuru, owner of the African Imports shop in the Pike Place Market and chairman of the African Chamber of Commerce here, also had a good word for it. "Africans need jobs to support their families," Gishuru said. "Aid has gone nowhere."
Bruce Ramsey's column appears Wednesdays. His e-mail address is bruceramsey@seattle-pi.com.
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