Good afternoon to everyone from the U.S. Department of State’s Africa Regional Media Hub.  I welcome our participants logging in from across the continent and thank all of you for joining us.  Today, we are very pleased to be joined by the Senior Bureau Official for the Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs, Ambassador Troy Fitrell.  Ambassador Fitrell will review his commercial diplomacy trip to West Africa and outline the U.S. State Department’s new commercial diplomacy strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa.  Joining Ambassador Fitrell in answering questions is U.S. Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire, Ambassador Jessica Davis Ba.

We will begin today’s briefing with opening remarks from Ambassador Fitrell, then we will turn to your questions.  We will try to get to as many of them as we can during the briefing.  With that, I will turn it over to Ambassador Fitrell for his opening remarks.

  Great, thank you very much.  Good evening and good morning to everyone who’s on the line. Thank you for being with us today.  I really appreciate the opportunity to address this.  I spent most of last week with Ambassador Davis Ba in Cote d’Ivoire expressly to unveil and to advance the new commercial diplomacy strategy that we’re putting – that we’re putting into place.  I think most clearly is we have for decades been defined by an assistance-led paradigm, and we are very directly and very intentionally shifting that toward an investment-led strategy, and it’s based on what we’ve seen that actually works over the course of decades.  And so we unveiled that.

I’m presuming a lot of people on the line have either seen our remarks or some of our releases regarding that, so I won’t do a grand exposition the way I did in a speech in Abidjan.  But if anybody would like me to quickly run down those six – those six points of our strategy, just put that in the question box or ask Johann and I’ll happily run through that.  Just quite simply, there’s the overall direct and intentional strategy, and with having Ambassador Davis Ba on the line as well – sees it at the other end – how we enact that on the ground.

So I’d like to stop there and get right to your questions because I think that’s why you joined today.  Johann?

  All right, thank you very much, Ambassador Fitrell.  We will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today’s briefing.  We ask that you limit yourself to one question only and that it be related to the topic of today’s briefing, which is Ambassador Fitrell’s commercial diplomacy trip to West Africa and the U.S. State Department’s new commercial diplomacy strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa.

So, to kick us off, our first question will go to Mr. Boakai Fofana of allAfrica.com in Liberia.  And Mr. Fofana asks:  “As you noted in your address to the AmCham Business Summit, ‘trade, not aid’ has been stated policy for successive recent administrations. How does the approach differ in the commercial diplomacy strategy which you announced?”

  Right.  Well, I think the main difference is actually putting it into practice.  And I’ll be honest:  Washington has an absolute love of rhyming slogans, and so the “trade, not aid” just lends itself to that.  But I prefer to refer to it as an investment-led strategy.  But commerce – trade – does in fact reflect an exchange between equals, equal partners, equal participants in an activity, versus the assistance-led paradigm that we’ve had in the past which involves a donor and a recipient and sort of puts our desire to shape how things go into a country instead of having it being negotiated with equals.

But when it comes to the major long-term investors in Africa, that’s where we see the middle class.  That’s where we see the economic growth.  That’s where we see the spinoff effects.  That’s what we see that works.  And so the whole point of the strategy that I outlined in that speech is to define how we can stress what actually works in a partnership with Africa, and that’s what those six points are for – is to put that into practice.  I think we’ve always said we were going to do it; now is the time to put it into practice.

And I will say that just last week in Abidjan we ended up with I think it was six – three MOUs signed with the host government as well as six new deals at more than $550 million.  Also, just in the first hundred days of the administration, we’ve had 33 new deals worth more than $6 billion.  This is a tremendous jump in economic activity between North America and Africa, and that matters.  I mean, that kind of success matters.  That’s what’s different between what we’re doing.  And it’s also – there’s a phrase I like to use a lot: that people respond to incentives.  And so the idea behind this strategy is to put an incentive structure in place that allows for the best practices to operate.  And quite simply, first among that are just the American ambassadors; they’ve been tasked – and I could put it in the active voice – I tasked them to go out and find commercial opportunities, to find opportunities to advocate for American companies, to find business opportunities, to find market reforms that were needed to enhance the business environment and to engage the host government on those – on those aspects.  That’s what’s different now from what we’ve seen in the past.

  All right, thank you very much, Ambassador Fitrell.  For our second question let’s go to Mr. Alhasan Bah of QTV in The Gambia.  The questions – well, Mr. Bah’s questions are:  “What are the projects and investments of the United States in Africa and where can the data be found on those?  And related question:  How do we promote and build the U.S.-Africa relationship using the media?”

  Ah.  I’ll start with the projects and investments.  A number of the things – probably the signature item that we’ve had is I think a lot of people know about the Lobito Corridor crossing Angola and entering into either DRC or Zambia as the project continues.  And the idea being that it wasn’t just the United States coming in and doing a project.  It had heavy private sector and heavy multilateral participation.  We’re able to use U.S. Government tools to get it started, as a catalyst, and that imprimatur that we put on top of it all by itself derisked the project to an extent that it attracted a lot more private sector investment, a lot more other donors who wish to participate, to create something – a major infrastructure project – that itself galvanized the local economy not just at the national level and the transport of goods, but also all the way along that rail route.

So that’s probably a – the big signature project that we’ve done over the last several years.  There were some concerns of whether, with the new administration, whether we would continue that, and the answer is an absolute resounding yes – that that is exactly the kind of thing we want to do, and frankly, as a model, we’d like to replicate that elsewhere.  But beyond that, that’s something where the U.S. Government came in with some financing options and some blended finance to make a project happen.  But there’s also a tremendous amount of investment in infrastructure as well as just straight commercial deals that we have advocated for.  And I think we probably will have a fact sheet out in the next couple of days that will list just the ones that have happened so far this year and the ones that we’ve specifically identified, but there are a tremendous number of those projects out there that you’ve seen on our Facebook and X feeds because we highlight them fairly regularly.  We probably should do a better job of having a compendium of those so people can track them, but we will have something like that out in the very near future.

Why don’t I also kick it to Ambassador Davis Ba for a moment, because there’s a number of deals we just signed last week in Cote d’Ivoire while we were there for the CEO Forum, and actually give you a couple of good examples.  Ambassador Davis Ba?

  Sure.  Thanks so much, Ambassador Fitrell.  Indeed, we have been tasked – and we’re delivering.  In Cote d’Ivoire, we used the opportunity of this visit to also launch for the first time ever a regional – in West Africa – American Chamber of Commerce summit.  So we brought together the AmChams from across West Africa, and what is also new about this is a real focus on Francophone countries as well.  Historically, because of language and a host of other reasons, as many of you know well, the United States has not focused in Francophone countries as much as we could.  And so that’s a huge focus of what we have also done – having a new office based in Abidjan with French speakers for the Development Finance Corporation, for the Department of Commerce, really enables us to use a range of tools in the U.S. Government tool chest.

So we signed a range of deals just last week, and it’s actually valued at over $700 million, both regional deals as well as bilateral deals in Cote d’Ivoire, ranging from digital transformation to energy and a range of different energy projects, including a refinery and looking at different clean technologies as well.  So looking at a range of U.S. innovation with the best companies in the world.

  All right.

  And I’ll take that pause as meaning that Ambassador Davis Ba was just finished there, but I’ll say – and what you’re seeing with those specific examples in Cote d’Ivoire is replicated all across the continent.  We’ve got LNG projects, power generation projects, telecommunications, mobile money – any sector that you could name, someone’s out there investing in it from the United States, and we’ve seen that across virtually every business sector.  Over.

  All right, thanks very much to our two speakers for those answers, and we’ll definitely be on the lookout for the fact sheet that you mentioned, Ambassador Fitrell.  I’d like to just remind the journalists that, please, we’re here today to discuss the U.S. State Department’s commercial diplomacy strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, and specifically Ambassador Fitrell’s recent visit to West Africa.  So please, let’s keep our questions on topic, which is the commercial diplomacy strategy.

Our next question goes to Mr. Malik Kane of AFRIMAG in Senegal.  The question is:  “Will AGOA be extended?  If yes, how will it be aligned to U.S. tariffs and to the African Continental Free Trade Agreement?”

  Well, thank you for that question.  I’m actually a big fan of AGOA.  It’s been – for the last 25 years it’s been a major part of my career.  Having something like that was at the start of my career; then we had it, and we’ve seen it continue on from that process.  The operative word of the AGOA acronym is “Act.”  It is an act of Congress; it is – it’s a law here.  So as it marches towards its end date, it is our Congress who needs to have the responsibility – that has the responsibility to revise, renew, or re-establish.  And so when I was asked that same question by the African diplomatic corps here in Washington, when they asked me, “What have you done to help – to help renew AGOA?” I turned it around and asked, “What have you done to help renew AGOA?”  That’s where the argument needs to be.  It needs to be on Capitol Hill for how we can do this.

Now, my suggestion – my expectation is if there’s going to be a renewal of AGOA, it will probably reflect the modern world rather than the one from 25 years ago when it was first founded.  A number of countries in Africa have benefited extraordinarily and had amazing economic growth thanks to the provisions of AGOA.  We’d certainly like to continue that kind of engagement, but there probably will need to be a much greater attention toward some form of reciprocity or some sort of engagement.  These are the kinds of negotiations that need to happen right now.  These are the kinds of discussions, relating it to the tariff part of the question, that we are engaging in right now.

What’s happened there is the African countries that have – specifically have the most at stake were first out of the box to say:  “We want to have negotiations right now for a better, more fair trading relationship with the United States, and here is a very specific request, a very specific position that we’re taking for these negotiations.”  Those countries that came like that were right up at the front of the queue and are having negotiations with our U.S. Trade Representative right now.

So for a lot of this in the way that I’m answering the question, it’s that the act itself is the purview of Congress, and the trade negotiations are with our U.S. Trade Representative, another agency.  But we of course care about this deeply, and part of our engagement has been to help our African partners navigate the American system to be able to make sure their views are held.  But I do think the future of United States trade with the entire continent of Africa will be much more focused around a reciprocal relationship, one that addresses the needs on both sides.  And there are African countries, for example, that have specifically asked for free trade areas with the United States.  That kind of openness is something we respect and encourage greatly, and we look forward to having those kinds of discussions, and we’ll see what happens.  Again, these are very complicated, long-term negotiations, but the only way to get to the end of them is to get started.

  Thank you very much, Ambassador Fitrell.  So I’d like to see if we can open the mike for Mr. Omar Bah of The Standard newspaper in Gambia.  Let’s see, Mr. Bah has a question in the Q&A tab.  And once again, just as a reminder, please put those questions in the Q&A tab.  So Mr. Bah, your mike is open, if you can ask your question.  I think you’re muted.  Okay, I tell you what – if we’re having problems, I’ll just read your question.  Let me just read your question.

Okay, so Mr. Bah is asking:  “What are the primary objectives of your visit to Cote d’Ivoire, and how do they align with the new United States strategy of prioritizing trade, not aid in Africa?  Can you elaborate on how the shift from aid to trade will impact ongoing and future U.S.-Africa partnerships, particularly in infrastructure and economic development?”

  Sure.  Well, taking the last part first, it should greatly expand our engagement with the infrastructure and development, because the whole idea is to unlock what we hold in the United States.  The U.S. capital market is worth something like $120 trillion with a T.  A lot of that is invested in purely automated processes, but getting the attention and the opportunities of the African continent allows for a level of investment that has just simply never been seen before.  And so this is a huge part of the strategy.

Now, the overall goals for my trip to West Africa were particularly related to commercial advocacy, commercial development, and sustainable economic growth.  We of course used the CEO Forum as a venue to be able to announce and promote our new commercial strategy.  It was a nice convening event where, as Ambassador Davis Ba mentioned, we had the representatives from the American Chambers of Commerce from I think 12 nearby countries, all convened there, and have an actual convention of – a summit of American Chambers of Commerce to talk about the kinds of things that the private sector needs to be more effective.

Now, let’s remember that chambers – American Chambers of Commerce are companies that are already active in Africa.  We don’t need to convince them to invest or trade.  They’re already there.  But they’re the examples; they’re the pace setters.  They can help encourage any of the 300,000 other companies in America that are ready to export to be able to engage in the market.  So finding out what they need, what they want, engaging with our host country officials all across Africa on what they need and what we can do to encourage more trade.

I will say that while I was there at the CEO Forum, I think I probably had 20 bilateral discussions with African governmental representatives – usually trade ministers, but including some presidents – presidents, vice presidents, foreign ministers as well.  But specifically on how our countries, how our economies can engage.  And that was the real reason to be there.  It was to put commercial advocacy at the absolute center of U.S. foreign policy for Africa.

  Thank you very much.  Next question goes to Mr. Gontrang Temandang of Alwihda Information in Chad.  His question is:  “You’ve announced that President Donald Trump may soon be hosting his African counterparts.  Will they all be invited or just a few?”

  Ah.  We’re looking very much forward to that.  There will be an African Leaders Summit this year.  I’m shooting for autumn in North America, but that’s still – the final decisions are to be made.  As to participation, the intention is for this to be an inclusive event.  We want to talk to the leaders across Africa.  I can’t specifically say that every single one right now, but certainly the intention is inclusivity and I don’t know of anyone that we would exclude at this moment.

  All right, thank you very much.  We have a live question from Mr. Patient Ligodi of RFI, France.  He put his question in French but we have a translation here:  “Given that we’re talking about trade diplomacy, where are you with the discussions between the DRC and Rwanda?  When will the meeting scheduled for Lomé take place?  We are already seeing the U.S. signing agreements with Rwanda on tin supplies. Shouldn’t we have waited for a peace agreement?”

  Well, I would say if you waited for the full peace agreement, you would have been waiting over the whole last 30 years.  One of the really I think positive aspects of the United States being engaged in this issue – and by the way, we were specifically asked by both parties to be involved in this issue – one of the greatest aspects of us being involved is the fact that we do push rapidly for attention.  We don’t believe in waiting six months, a year for the next iteration.  We want movement quickly.  And so far things have been moving in that regard.  This goes in concert with the Nairobi processes, the Luanda processes, with our friends from Qatar.  There is a tremendous amount of work going on behind the scenes to make sure these are all harmonized.  There is no venue shopping.  There’s no conflict between them.  It’s a matter of engaging together to move towards a common end.

Now, that said, you ask about a Lomé meeting.  That should be – that’s a question that should be directed towards our colleague, the AU-designated representative for this process, the president of Togo.  And we certainly would say we look forward to that as well, because it is all part of an ingrained process.

Now, one of the things that’s been absolutely true about the engagement on eastern DRC is that there’s one – there’s nothing in the world more expensive and less efficient than warfare.  There’s also such tremendous economic growth that both parties involved directly there could both benefit so much more greatly from a formalized economy, from peace, that that is the driving force behind this.  And yes, continuing to engage in economic opportunities helps add to stability; it helps demonstrate what’s available there if we get to a peaceful opportunity to have a better business environment.  And it’s not just Rwanda and the DRC.  You have to put in Burundi, Uganda, and then all the other neighboring countries – Angola, Zimbabwe.  All of these stand to benefit.  The region needs a peace agreement, and driving forward on that is actually the goal.  And I’m certainly not going to apologize for us being ambitious on that and trying to push for decisions quickly.  That’s been part of the value of having us involved.

  Thank you very much, Ambassador.  I think we probably have time for just one more question, and we’ve talked a lot about really big deals and really big numbers and really big diplomatic initiatives.  Ms. Lisa Kunney of Social Platform Magazine in the USA has this question:  “How will these policies and opportunities engage small growers and street vendors?  Will there be a means to incorporate them with services and incentives?”

  Well, sure, but what you’re – I think what you’re hinting at is the role of the state in a host country.  And we wouldn’t presume that the private sector should take on the role of the state.  But what the private sector and economic growth and formalization of the economy bring is the ability for the state to have the opportunity to provide opportunities for everyone.  If there is more formal employment, if there are more taxes being paid, if there are more jobs available, this will help the small growers, the informal economy.  This is – I mean, and we’ve seen this everywhere across Africa:  Where there is structured, formal economy, the informal economy tends to benefit vastly more than in the previous environment.

So the intention there is to have the economy benefit the entire population, but the role of the state is the role of the state, and it’s I think often a mistake to try to have private sector entities take on that role, that government role, that is appropriately the government’s.

  All right, thank you very much, Ambassador.  You’ve been very generous with your time today, and I think that we almost got you overtime now.  But do you have any final thoughts or remarks for us before we wrap up today?

  I would just simply say that, first, it just felt wonderful to be a diplomat again by being back in West Africa, and it’s certainly my goal to travel all over the – all over the continent advancing these kinds of objectives.  I could do this myself in the private sector, but the reason I do this is because I absolutely adore doing this kind of work.  I love engaging with host populations and with my counterparts from other governments.  This is just a tremendous period for optimism, and I just can’t wait to see how this is going to develop over time.  And so to everyone who’s on here, thank you so much, and thank you for your commitment to journalism.  The use of the – of journalistic practice (inaudible) of the people to have reliable sources of information is absolutely critical.  And so thank you al

l for being journalists in this incredibly interesting time.

  All right, thank you very much.  I want to especially thank Senior Bureau Official Ambassador Troy Fitrell and U.S. Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire, Ambassador Jessica Davis Ba, for joining us today.  Thank you also to the journalists for participating.  A recording and a transcript of today’s briefing will be distributed to participating journalists as soon as we produce them ourselves.  If you have any questions about today’s briefing, you may contact the Africa Regional Media Hub at [email protected].  If you do publish any articles or any broadcast content from today’s briefing, please share a link with us at the same email I just mentioned; that would be very useful for us.  We like to keep an eye on the impact of these briefings, which we find very valuable.  And finally, I’d like to also invite everyone to follow us on Twitter, or X, at our handle @AfricaMediaHub.  Thank you very much and great day to everybody.