12 Leaders The Economist March 26th 2022
less pressing than the energy crisis, and today’s cuts are present
ed as temporary. But fuel duties are notoriously difficult to raise
because they are so unpopular, meaning that the cuts may be
come permanent. Nobody believes that Mr Sunak will imple
ment the big rise he has pencilled in for a year’s time. In 2011 Brit
ain put off a planned rise in fuel duty for seven months. It was re
peatedly postponed and now Mr Sunak has cut instead. Ameri
ca’s federal tax on petrol has been 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993.
In both cases the tax has stayed constant even as inflation has
eroded its real value and the increasing fuelefficiency of cars
has made driving cheaper. In January motor fuel accounted for
little more than $1 in every $50 the American consumer spent.
Adjusted for today’s higher price at the pump, the share of
spending is still lower than the average since records began in1959. Drivers notice dearer fuel, and American consumerconfi
dence is its lowest in over a decade. But today’s high oil price will
not hurt motorists as much as the oil embargoes of the 1970s.
There are better ways to help struggling households than to
lean against the price mechanism. Governments should tem
porarily support the income of the poor in ways that do not en
courage the consumption of fuel. Mr Sunak has cut taxes on low
and middle earners, which is a start, but he should also have
made universal credit, Britain’s stingy main welfare benefit,
more generous (see Britain section). Calories and joules
What is more, support for incomes, unlike tax cuts for motor
ists, helps offset the full spectrum of forces that are eroding liv
ing standards. The biggest blow to Europe’s wallets is coming
not at the pump, but through the cost of heating and electricity.
Food prices have soared, too.Noteveryone drives, but everyone
needs warmth and sustenance.nI
n 1963, asdecolonisationsweptthroughAfrica,politicians
heady with panAfrican ideals called for a common continen
tal market. They saw it as a way to transcend colonial economic
models based upon extracting and exporting natural resources.
Sadly there has been all too little progress since. IntraAfrican
trade remains small compared with the continent’s external
trade. Primary commodities account for more than 70% of Afri
ca’s exports. Just 18% of exports by African countries are to oth
ers on the continent—a lower share than equivalent figures for
Asia (58%) and Europe (68%).
The African Continental Free Trade Area (afcfta) is meant to
help change this (see Middle East & Africa section). This ambi
tious pact has been ratified by 41 of Africa’s 55 countries. Making
it easier for them to trade with one another should boost manu
facturing, incomes and growth. The World
Bank estimates that, if implemented, by
the afcfta would enable an additional 30m
people to escape extreme poverty, increase in
traAfrican exports by 81% and boost wages by
10%. Although the afcftahas in theory been
operational since the beginning of this year, in
practice no trade has happened under its terms
because of continued political wrangling. Afri
ca’s leaders risk squandering the promise of freer trade.
Some of the potential benefits of the afcftacome from lower
tariffs. To realise these, the continent’s trade negotiators still
have work to do in agreeing on rules of origin, the bedrock of any
trade area. They need to get their skates on.
The biggest prize, however, will come not from lower tariffs
but from lower “nontariff barriers”—by pulling down more of
the other obstacles that make it hard for, say, a Ugandan farmer
to export chickens to Kenya or for a Beninese weaver to sell fab
ric to Nigeria. These barriers include corruption, shoddy infra
structure, red tape at border crossings, slothlike customs bu
reaucracies and expensive logistics. Because of them, transport
ing goods within Africa can be three to four times as costly as in
other parts of the world. In 2017 it took an average of 251 hours toensurepaperworkwasinorderwhenimporting goods into sub
Saharan Africa, versus nine hours in rich oecdcountries.
Many of these problems can be fixed. Potholes could be filled;
ports expanded. Paperwork could be digitised and sent in ad
vance of time. More countries could build onestop border
posts, instead of making lorry drivers queue separately for mi
gration, road taxes, vehicle inspection and customs clearance.
In east Africa such streamlining has cut crossing times from
hours to four. Not requiring covid19 tests would let lorries
spend more time ferrying and less time tarrying. Countries
should make it easier to establish logistics startups, such as
firms that cut costs by matching loads with empty vehicles.
Cheaper transport means cheaper goods in shops.
Yet all this is easier said than done. One obstacle is that vested
interests, such as trucking cartels and customs
bureaucracies, profit from inefficiency. Ghana
has shown that these can be weakened. Another
problem is that for all their homilies about free
trade, many African politicians are protection
ists at heart. No country seems to want to move
first in ongoing talks about implementing the
freetrade deal. Even though they stand to bene
fit the most, the largest economies in each re
gion—Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa—are proving piti
fully slow to embrace the trade pact.
A third political challenge relates to outsiders, including
America, China and the European Union. Though they say they
want to support the afcfta, they often undermine it by signing
bilateral deals which then complicate Africa’s efforts to har
monise its own trade rules.
Each of these problems requires the sort of leadership that
has so far been in scant supply. But if politicians seize the oppor
tunity, the afcftacan help the continent climb out of the eco
nomic slump it has been pushed into by the pandemic and the
war in Ukraine. It would also send a message to the rest of the
world. At a time when protectionist noisesaregrowing louder,
Africa has a chance to be an inspiring outlier.nAfrican countries need to put more effort into tearing down trade barriers Long walk to free trade
African economies