AGOA's promise fades under new US tariffs

Although the African Growth and Opportunity Act has been extended for another year, new US reciprocal tariffs have largely erased its duty-free benefits. Recent modelling shows sharp declines in African exports to the US, particularly in apparel-dependent economies such as Lesotho and Madagascar.

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The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was introduced in 2000 as the cornerstone of US development-oriented trade policy towards sub-Saharan Africa.

It was designed to grant eligible countries duty-free access to the US market. In February 2026, President Donald Trump signed a one-year extension after the programme lapsed in September 2025. Yet the programme's core benefit has already been effectively eliminated.

Since April 2025, the US has imposed additional bilateral 'reciprocal' tariffs ranging from 10% to 30% on countries eligible for the AGOA terms. Critically, AGOA only waives the standard tariff rate the US applies to all World Trade Organisation members (the Most Favoured Nation tariff). This averaged just 3,3% in 2017.

The US Supreme Court struck down the much larger reciprocal surcharges on 20 February 2026, but the White House responded immediately, imposing a 15% surcharge on most imports, effective from 24 February 2026 for 150 days. AGOA technically lives on after a one-year extension, but its main advantage has largely disappeared since the US added tariffs on top of it.

As economists and trade modellers at the German Institute of Development and Sustainablity, we are interested in quantifying the effects of the changing US tariff regime.

We ran a model that captures economy-wide adjustments across sectors and countries after a tariff shock via prices, production, consumption, and trade diversion.

Our simulations show that new Trump-era tariffs drive large declines in US-bound exports from Africa. The steepest damage is in a few AGOA-dependent countries and sectors such as apparel. Our results remain valid after the latest shift to the 15% tariff surcharge.

AGOA offers only a modest advantage over other developing countries still subject to Most Favoured Nation status tariffs.

WHEN PREFERENCES VANISH BUT 'AMERICA FIRST' STAYS