ADDIS ABABA, DECEMBER 16, 2021 — Senator Jim Inhofe, during his speech on Senate Floor, said the Biden administration should take real steps to undo the sanctions against the democratically elected government of Ethiopia and roll back the termination of The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) benefits.
Full speech text below.
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I’ve spoken several times about the situation in Ethiopia this year. It’s a nation that’s close to my heart for a lot of different reasons.
If you’re trying to understand the politics behind what’s happening on the ground, it’s very complicated.
But what’s not complicated is that the human suffering happening is heartbreaking. Women, children, and the elderly – many weak and vulnerable people are being caught up in a war. They’re dying. It’s awful.
I pray the violence stops very quickly and call all who feel the same to join me.
One of my big criticisms of our State Department is that they tend to go around the world telling other countries what they need to do instead of focusing on building lasting friendships and alliances.
This pushes countries away from us instead of bringing them toward us, and we can’t afford to do that anymore with a rising Russia and China, who are all too eager to pick up the pieces we leave behind.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Biden administration is doing in Ethiopia. Because Ethiopia has been unable to resolve its internal challenges quick enough for the administration, they’re punishing Ethiopia.
Most recently, this has been in the form of announcing their plan to remove Ethiopia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
This means that Ethiopia will no longer have preferential trade capabilities with the United States—for both import and export. This is devastating to a nation that’s been such a great partner over the years. Ethiopia has long been one of our greatest trading partners in Africa, in part because its airline has a majority Boeing fleet. Because of that, many planes across the continent are maintained in Ethiopia.
This flippant action makes our other partners doubt our commitment and pulls the rug out from under many American businesses that have decided to make investments in Ethiopia instead of countries in other places around the world like Southeast Asia.
If we are willing to arbitrarily kick countries out of the agreement, other countries and American companies might not see participation in AGOA as worth the hassle.
Every time we do something like this, we leave a vacuum that China is only too eager to fill.
Just after the Biden administration announced their plan to punish Ethiopia, the Chinese government announced their own plan to purchase $300 billion worth of goods from Africa over the next three years and to invest nearly $10 billion.
The Chinese Foreign Minister promptly visited Addis Ababa to support Prime Minister Abiy and his unified government. He didn’t mention a word about the internal challenges he faces. They were there to support him – the Democratically elected leader of Ethiopia. That’s exactly what we should be doing. But we aren’t – and China is.
We know that Russia and China are encroaching throughout Africa. They want nothing more than to create a division between the United States and Ethiopia and in countries across the continent.
The good news – if you can call it that – is that there is time before the Biden administration cancels the AGOA benefits for Ethiopia on January 1, but the door is closing.
The Biden administration should take real steps to undo the sanctions against the democratically elected government of Ethiopia and roll back the termination of AGOA benefits.
I yield the floor."
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