The United States has renewed the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), extending duty-free access for eligible African exports to the US market until December 31, 2026, with retroactive effect from September 30, 2025, when the Trump administration allowed it to lapse.

For most of its life, AGOA, the US’s flagship trade initiative with the continent, has been renewed in multi-year, long-horizon periods (8–10 years) to give investors and manufacturers confidence to build export industries.

In January 2026, the US House of Representatives voted to renew AGOA for three years, but the Senate reduced the extension to just one year, in line with President Trump’s demand the program be overhauled to favour US exporters.

The AGOA extension provides continued preferential market access for thousands of products from qualifying sub-Saharan African countries, supporting export-oriented sectors such as apparel, agriculture and light manufacturing.

The preferential trade pact, first enacted in 2000, is a cornerstone of US-Africa policy, designed to promote economic growth and integration into global markets by granting eligible countries tariff-free access to the world’s largest consumer market.

“AGOA for the 21st century must demand more from our trading partners and yield more market access for US businesses, farmers, and ranchers to build upon the benefits it has historically provided to Africa and the United States,” said Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, announcing the extension.

“We must also make sure that the program enhances US-Africa trade and will work with Congress over the next year to modernize the program to align with President Trump’s America First Trade Policy.”

​AGOA provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market for over 1,800 products, in addition to the more than 5,000 products that are eligible for duty-free access under the Generalized System of Preferences program.

The value of US imports from AGOA beneficiaries rose 37% from 2001 to end-2021, a UN trade agency study showed, while imports more than doubled “when stripping out fluctuating US demand for Angolan and Nigerian petroleum products”, according to Reuters.

The renewal offers short-term certainty for African exporters and investors who rely on the scheme, particularly in countries where AGOA has underpinned the development of textile and apparel industries geared toward US buyers.

However, the relatively brief extension — rather than a longer-term renewal — is likely to maintain pressure on governments and private-sector operators to diversify markets and strengthen regional value chains, including under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). And tariffs introduced by Trump severely limit its impact.

“Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs effectively negate AGOA,” Brendon Verster, senior economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note, adding that the extension only gives some certainty for existing exporters and that Trump could still strip nations of eligibility. “The extension is better than a termination, but it doesn't represent a stable long-term solution.”

Eligibility under AGOA is reviewed periodically and depends on countries meeting criteria related to governance, rule of law and market-based economic policies, meaning continued access is not automatic. Gabon, Niger, the Central African Republic and Uganda, for example, were all stripped of AGOA privileges from January 2024.

For policymakers across Africa, the extension provides breathing room but also underscores the need for broader trade diversification strategies as global trade dynamics and US policy priorities evolve.

South Africa, one of the largest beneficiaries of AGOA in value terms, remains eligible under the programme, but its position has drawn increasing scrutiny in Washington. Trade tensions over issues such as poultry imports, intellectual property rules and Pretoria’s foreign policy stance have periodically raised the prospect of a review of its benefits. The country’s automotive, agricultural and manufacturing exporters are among those most exposed to any change in AGOA status.

Trump has also bristled at South Africa’s efforts to address racial inequality and boycotted events organised under Pretoria’s G20 presidency last year. US tariffs on South African exports are at about 30%.

But with some goods not covered by Trump’s tariffs, duty-free trade under AGOA would still apply in some cases, Oxford Economics’ Verster said.

The International Trade Centre had estimated that the expiry of AGOA would have reduced projected exports of AGOA beneficiaries by $189mn by 2029, with $138mn of that accounted for by reductions in exports of apparel and textile products to the United States, impacting some of the continent's poorest and least-diversified economies.