Nigeria, Aug. 29 -- There's a lot of hype right now about how intra-African trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could replace the considerable loss of African exports to the United States (US) precipitated by the Trump administration's steep tariff hike.

Intra-African trade - which, at about 15-16 per cent of all African trade, is relatively low - seems to have increased a bit because of the AfCFTA, but not much.

At a seminar this week, Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, executive director of the South African Institute of International Affairs, asked Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the AfCFTA, whether the eruption of tariff wars and the major disruption to the global trading system were not, paradoxically, the kind o...