The decision comes into effect as of January 1, 2019. An advanced motive, the persistence of slavery in this country of West Africa on the edge of the Maghreb.
Known as AGOA for the African Growth Opportunities Act, the US measure allowed certain African countries fulfilling certain conditions (democracy, human rights and the business environment), to export local products to America free of all customs duties.
The initiative was launched in the year 2000. Mauritania will have to wait until the democratic transition of 2007 to access it while remaining under surveillance on the sensitive issue of slavery. Abolished in 1981, recently criminalized, this practice still remains in the country according to human rights organizations who regularly point to the passivity of the state.
In the letter sent to the US Congress in which he sets out his decision to suspend Mauritania, President Donald Trump insists particularly on hereditary slavery. The American president and some congressman will have used all their influence a few months ago. to push the IMF to reconsider its cooperation with Nouakchott for the same reasons.
It should be noted that this important decision comes at a time when a politician and human rights activist, Birame Dah Ould Abeid, president of the IRA movement (the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement), has been behind bars since mid August. A year ago, a delegation of American activists invited by the NGO SOS Esclaves Mauritania, was repressed upon his arrival in Nouakchott despite prior consultation with the government.
