Uganda’s State Minister for Trade, Harriet Ntabazi (pictured), has said that the East African country will abandon the US market if its participation is hinged on condition that the country accepts homosexuality, arguing that Uganda has enough markets to sell its products.
“If America insists that we should marry woman to woman, then we shall do away with the market because what we are looking for in that market is not only political relationships, but real trade volumes…,” said Ntabazi, adding: “We have enough markets for Uganda, we have the East African Community, we have Southern African Development Community (SADC), we have the European Union, we have markets in China and India.”
Ntabazi made the remarks during a media interview where she was clarifying on the latest move by President Museveni to send his son-in law Odrek Rwabwogo to negotiate on Uganda’s behalf following threats made by US to drop Uganda out of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), saying that Rwabwogo was chosen because he is the Presidential Advisor on Trade and Industry.
“The team was given powers to deliver the message of President Museveni, but of course, they will not push us to the wall because the President has been passionately against homosexuality and you can’t change his mind because that is the voice of Ugandans, Ugandans are saying, you can’t go homosexual and the President can’t come up and break that law because he is part of Ugandans. He is one of the indigenous Ugandans who have shaped it to what it is now,” said Minister Ntabazi.
The development comes at a time when reports emerged that President Museveni dispatched his son-in-law/trade adviser Odrek Rwabwogo to Washington to try to stave off Uganda’s looming expulsion from AGOA.
United States recently informed the Government of Uganda that they will lose eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act benefits on January 1, 2024 due to gross violations of internationally recognized human rights unless they publicly release an action plan for addressing human rights concerns and repeal the Anti- Homosexuality Act.
The Minister also lashed out at the US Gov’t for mixing issues of trade and human rights, saying Uganda already had complaints about US asking Uganda to only export raw materials without adding value, saying this is already disadvantageous to Uganda.
“So what we are waiting for is the US to understand that trade is different from human rights, these are quite divergent matters and the challenge we have is that the US doesn’t want us to add any value on anything yet among the negotiations we had as AGOA as we extend for 10years, we should start adding value to the products. But of course they brought in other issues to do with security, violation of human rights and they assumed as if Uganda is on fire and there is going to be a coup, there is no coup that is going to be in Uganda,” added Ntabazi.
She said Uganda is in negotiations with the leadership of US and a decision will be communicated soon.
“So we are good to go, they will come looking for us because the coffee we have here, which other countries regards as theirs comes from Uganda,” she said.
