As World Wavers on Free Trade, Africa Embraces It

Amid trade tensions between the U.S., China and Europe, and the U.K.’s fraught departure from the European Union, African leaders are moving in the opposite direction to establish the world’s largest free-trade zone. Talks on driving forward the African Continental Free Trade Area that stalled with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic are being revived by the African Union, but there is some way to go. A fully implemented deal could cover a market of more than 1.2 billion people with a combined