U.S. investor Michael Coudrey has announced his immediate withdrawal from the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Tanzania, accusing the organization of opposing President Trump’s visa restrictions on the country.
In a statement released on Tuesday December 23,2024, Coudrey criticized AmCham Tanzania for what he described as a departure from its core mission of advancing U.S. commercial interests abroad.
“An American Chamber of Commerce is supposed to do one thing: advance American commercial interests abroad by telling the truth, especially when the truth is inconvenient,” Coudrey said.
“The document AmCham Tanzania just released on ‘balanced and predictable mobility policies’ does the opposite. It is a sleekly written attempt to attack the U.S. Administration and President Donald Trump’s America-First visa reforms, while rebranding a mobility-access agenda as ‘commercial necessity,’ offering no serious data, no compliance metrics, and no honest engagement with the realities that drive U.S. entry policy.”
Coudrey further argued that the Chamber’s stance misrepresents the foundations of U.S.-Tanzania trade.
“The foundational premise is intellectually weak: the insinuation that U.S.-Tanzania commerce requires Tanzanian citizens to travel to the United States at scale. In practice, the center of gravity of U.S.-Tanzania trade and investment execution is in-country and in-region—not dependent on inbound U.S. access,” he said.
He accused the organization of prioritizing Tanzanian interests over American ones.
“Under the Chamber’s new leadership, AmCham Tanzania has effectively transitioned into a Tanzania-first advocacy group for foreign interests masquerading as American ones, more focused on lobbying Washington for Tanzanian mobility access than advancing American strategic and commercial priorities,” Coudrey said.
The investor warned U.S. officials and businesses against relying on AmCham Tanzania under its current leadership.
“I strongly encourage that no U.S. government office, U.S. embassy, U.S. diplomat, or U.S. strategic commercial stakeholder treat AmCham Tanzania as a credible representative of American business interests while current leadership remains. An organization that cannot distinguish commercial reality from advocacy theater becomes a liability, not a partner,” he added.
Coudrey’s organization, Pharos Investment Group, said it will only consider rejoining AmCham Tanzania once new leadership is installed and the Chamber returns to a “data-driven advancement of U.S. commercial competitiveness and strategic alignment, not mobility lobbying dressed up as trade policy.”
The withdrawal comes amid broader tensions over U.S. visa restrictions, with Coudrey noting the impact of recent electoral controversies in Tanzania.
“Tanzania continues to lose because of one day of electoral malpractice which led to killings,” he said, emphasizing the need for accurate, fact-based representation in international commerce advocacy.
Coudrey concluded his statement with a call for the Chamber to refocus on its foundational mission.
“This is not how durable U.S.-Tanzania commercial relationships are built. This is how they are eroded, one elegantly written misdirection at a time.”
