“Feeling the Elephant’s Weight” interrogates the emerging spatial and scalar re-ordering of African trade after the Tripartite Free
Trade Area (TFTA) came into force in 2024. Combining new firm-to-firm transaction data with satellite-derived freight flows and a
calibrated general-equilibrium model, we show that the agreement’s headline 90 % tariff elimination has already shifted 14 % of
intra-African trade from the continent’s traditional coastal gateways to a set of twenty-three inland “relay cities” that sit on the
Tripartite corridor network. These cities—stretching from Lubumbashi to Mekelle—now intermediate 31 % of all TFTA-qualifying
consignments, but absorb only 19 % of the associated value-added, revealing a pronounced decoupling of logistics centrality from
income capture.
We trace this asymmetry to three interacting frictions: (i) persistent non-tariff barriers whose ad-valorem equivalent remains 9–12
%; (ii) a 2.4-day average increase in border dwell-time for small- and medium-sized exporters relative to large firms; and (iii) a 37 %
rise in empty backhaul rates on the North–South corridor after South African retailers re-optimized procurement post-liberalization.
Counterfactual simulations indicate that a coordinated investment package—$4.8 billion in hard infrastructure and a 50 % cut in
documentary compliance time—would triple the inland share of value-added, turning the relay cities into genuine production
platforms rather than transit depots.
Conversely, failure to address the frictions risks locking the continent into a hub-and-spoke pattern where the Tripartite zone
becomes a throughput belt for extra-African value chains. The paper closes by quantifying the welfare implications of these
alternative spatial equilibria: full implementation could raise real incomes by 2.7 % in low-income member states and 1.1 %
continent-wide, whereas partial implementation yields gains below 0.4 % and increases regional inequality. By “feeling the
elephant’s weight” at each node of the new network, we provide the first geographically disaggregated assessment of what Africa’s
largest trade agreement actually weighs—on the ground and in the pockets of its citizens.