The effect of exchange rate volatility on U.S. bilateral trade with Africa: A symmetric and asymmetric analysis

•We investigate the asymmetric effects of exchange rate volatility.•We use data from the U.S. and each of its 20 African Partners.•We apply both the linear and nonlinear ARDL methods to each partner.•We find short-run asymmetric effects in all models.•Significant long-run asymmetric effects were discovered in the case of U.S. exports to 15 countries and U.S. imports from 12 countries. The impact of exchange rate volatility on U.S. trade with the world or on U.S. trade with major partners has been assessed by many researchers, but none have considered the case of U.S. trade with African nations. We fill this gap by assessing the symmetric and asymmetric impact of the real bilateral exchange rate volatility between the U.S. dollar and each African partner’s currency on the U.S. trade flows with each of the 20 partners from Africa. We found asymmetric short-run effects of exchange rate volatility on almost all U.S. exports to and imports from each of the 20 countries. In addition, significant long-run asymmetric effects were discovered in the case of U.S. exports to 15 countries and U.S. imports from 12 countries. Our findings are partner-specific.