The United States has notified Congress and the governments of Rwanda and South Africa that it intends to end the two countries’ preferential access under an African trade programme from 1 January 2027.
The notification concerns the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, which allows qualifying goods from eligible sub-Saharan African countries to enter the US without ordinary customs duties. Other duties can still apply. The proposed change is not yet in effect.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said an annual review had led President Donald Trump to conclude that the two governments were engaging in practices inconsistent with the programme’s eligibility criteria. The announcement was made on 2 November.
The US administration cited concerns about barriers to American trade and investment and threats to US national security and foreign-policy interests. In Rwanda’s case, it also listed the rule of law, political pluralism, workers’ rights and human rights. For South Africa, it raised corruption as an additional concern.
Those are the administration’s stated grounds, not independently established findings in the announcement. The US statement did not give specific examples of the trade barriers or security issues it identified.
How the preference works
AGOA was enacted in 2000. It is a unilateral US trade preference rather than a reciprocal free-trade agreement: it does not require beneficiary countries to provide equivalent access to US exports in return.
Eligibility has two parts. A country must be designated as a beneficiary, and an individual product must qualify under the programme’s rules. Those rules include requirements about where goods originate and, for many products, the value of materials and processing from eligible countries.
The programme covers thousands of product lines, including goods also covered by a broader US preference system and additional goods such as certain apparel and agricultural products. Exporters cannot assume that every shipment from an eligible country automatically receives the preference.
The US reviews countries’ eligibility each year. The legislation considers matters including progress towards a market-based economy, the rule of law and workers’ rights, as well as barriers to US trade and investment. The President can end a country’s designation or limit benefits for particular products.
Congress extended the programme’s trade preferences through 31 December 2028 in legislation enacted in September. That extension did not guarantee that every country would retain beneficiary status for the whole period.
What the change could mean for trade
Loss of AGOA status would not itself ban goods from either country from entering the US. It would remove the programme’s preference for goods that currently qualify, leaving the applicable treatment to depend on the product and other US trade measures.
Other duties can apply separately from AGOA. The difference made by withdrawal will therefore vary: it depends on the ordinary duty for a particular product, whether the shipment uses the preference and what other measures apply at the time of import.
South Africa’s exports to the US include vehicle parts, citrus fruit and wine. Rwanda’s exports include coffee and minerals. The importance of the programme to individual producers should not be confused with a claim that all trade in those products uses AGOA.
South Africa’s trade department says most of the country’s exports to the US already enter under ordinary trading rules rather than AGOA. Even so, companies and sectors that use the preference could face different costs if the proposed change takes effect.
In guidance issued on 3 November, the department said it was assessing the implications and engaging stakeholders. It encouraged exporters to identify which goods use AGOA, check their product classifications and potential duties, and discuss contracts and shipments with US buyers and importers.
Rwanda’s apparel benefits were already subject to a separate partial suspension dating from 2018. The latest notification is broader: it concerns the proposed termination of the two countries’ beneficiary status under the programme.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had warned on 19 October that the country needed to prepare for a possible loss of access, while saying discussions with US counterparts were continuing. The subsequent US notification is a further step, but the announced January date remains a future implementation date.
