 in 2008, and in the latter year, 98.5% of it was imported from the United States.Mali was the seventh-largest cotton-exporting nation in 1999, and it has fallen from seventh to tenth position from 2003 to 2007.In their 2005/06 study tour of seven African nations to assess Canada's foreign policy record on that continent, Canadian Senators Hugh Segal and Peter A. Stollery "heard in Mali that there was little will on the part of certain developed countries to make a trade deal on cotton.