America’s trade deal benefiting African countries – the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) – is going to be “reformed” before it is renewed again, the United States congress has been told.
| Key takeaways: Extension prioritised: The US is committing to a multi-year AGOA extension beyond 2026, making it a top trade priority. End of one-way trade: New reforms will demand “reciprocity,” requiring African countries to open their markets to US goods. Countering China: Reforming the deal is a strategic move to blunt China’s influence, as the US believes AGOA has inadvertently benefited Chinese trade. |
The Trump administration is going to seek public comment and input before revising the legislation, US trade representative Jamieson Greer told lawmakers during a hearing on the administration’s trade policy.
Greer stressed that “reforming” AGOA was a top priority for the administration, and that one of the objectives would be to counter China’s growing influence in Africa and its share of African trade, World Trade Online reported.
Another US objective is to get tariff-free access for American exports to African countries.
The AGOA legislation gives qualifying African countries preferential access to US markets. It was last renewed in 2015 and was due to be renewed again last year, but the Trump administration allowed it to lapse before renewing it retroactively to the end of 2026.
Now the administration is committed to working with congress on a multi-year extension, Greer said, but the period had yet to be defined.
“This is something that is at the top of our agenda, and I think there is a real opportunity together to create a longer-lasting, more reciprocal AGOA.”
Greer said his office would soon solicit public input “on how we can improve AGOA to meet the goals that you and I share,” he told Jason Smith, the Republican Party chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.
One of those goals, Greer suggested, is to address China’s growing presence in Africa since AGOA was first authorized in 2000.
“When we look back at 20 years of AGOA,” he said, “at the end of that 20-year period, China was the largest beneficiary of African trade. So something wasn’t working with AGOA.”
Opening the discussion, Smith said AGOA was supported by both parties in Congress, and the programme “strengthens our critical supply chains and helps us counter the harmful influence of nations like China and Russia in one of the fastest growing parts of the world.”
He also told Greer that the US “we must set high standards for our trading partners and ensure market access for American producers.”
This is both good news and bad news for the African countries who have been part of AGOA, and particularly for South Africa, which might yet find itself excluded from renewed AGOA benefits.
The good news is that the Trump administration is going to back a long-term extension of the AGOA deal, and is going to give this top priority.
The bad news is the repeated insistence that a renewed AGOA must include increased access to African markets for American producers. AGOA has been largely a one-way street, with the US offering trade benefits to African countries without demanding reciprocal rights.
The only market access on which the US has insisted has been the 72 000-tonne annual duty-free quota for US chicken imports into South Africa. Now African countries are likely to face a variety of demands to remove any restrictions on American goods and to give preferential treatment to US producers.
