Kenya cannot ban Mitumba without upsetting the US, just ask Rwanda

In 2016, five East African countries;  Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, had announced a joint plan of banning the importation of second-hand clothing popularly known as Mitumba.

This, the EAC Council of Ministers who proposed the ban, said was to help spur local manufacturing through the adoption of the Industrialisation Policy.

The EAC directed member states to source their textiles and shoes from within the region with a plan of phasing out imports by 2019.

The EAC also went further and proposed a reduction in imports of used cars.

The region was seeking to push for the promotion of motor vehicle assemblies together with textile and leather industries in the region.

Everything was on track until the United States, through then President Donald Trump got itself involved and scattered the plans to the four corners of the earth.

Washington insiders were rattled by this move and quickly moved to put out this fire before it got hotter.

The US government initiated “an out-of-cycle review of Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda’s AGOA eligibility regarding their decisions to phase in a ban on imports of used clothing and footwear.”

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) provides duty-free treatment to goods of designated sub-Saharan African countries (SSAs).

The program dates from 2000 and has the goal of promoting economic growth through good governance and free markets.

It covers non-textile as well as textile goods and was most recently re-authorised through September 30, 2025.

The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMART), asserted that the East African Community (EAC)’s 2016 decision to phase in a ban on imports of used clothing and footwear would impose significant economic hardship on the U.S. used clothing industry, and is inconsistent with AGOA beneficiary criteria for countries to establish a market-based economy and eliminate barriers to U.S. trade and investment.

SMART’s petition requested an out-of-cycle review to determine whether Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, members of the EAC, are meeting AGOA eligibility criteria.

In its petition, SMART estimated that 40,000 U.S. jobs related to the collection, processing, and distribution of used clothing and footwear would be negatively affected once the ban is implemented.

With this opposition, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania backed away from their plans but Rwanda held firm.

Kenya’s then Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed said that retaining the flow of these clothes into the country will allow both importers and local producers to remain in business.

The BBC said Kenya's benefits from Agoa are considerably higher than Rwanda: exports to the US amounted to nearly Ksh.70 billion ($600m) in 2017, compared to just Ksh.5 billion ($43m) for Rwanda.

Rwanda’s ban on Mitumba was met with a lot of heat and in March 2018, gave Rwanda 60 days' notice threatening to suspend the country from selling clothes to America duty free.

President Trump determined that Rwanda was not making “sufficient progress toward the elimination of barriers to U.S. trade and investment, and therefore was out of compliance with eligibility requirements of AGOA.”

Rwanda did not move and after six months, was suspended from AGOA.

President Kagame was not moved saying Rwanda will not bow to pressure by the US to reduce taxes and lift the ban on used clothes.

“The decision we took as the East African Community (EAC) still stands. We want to implement the rules of origin, after finding out that items are made in China, used in the US and dumped in East Africa,” said Olivier Nduhungirehe, the State Minister at Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Co-operation and East African Community.

According to the BBC, the used-clothing market in Rwanda employs more than 22,000 people in 2016 and was worth $17m (Ksh.2 billion). That ecosystem is struggling since President Kagame's ban.