The potential expiration of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), a duty-free trade programme between the US and Africa, is unlikely to have a material impact on developing nations covered by the initiative, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
A trade arrangement under Agoa, which provides duty-free access to the US for thousands of products from 32 eligible African countries, is set to expire this month.
The WTO said the expiry of Agoa would not have a substantial effect due to the minimal trade between eligible African nations and the US.
“In spite of Agoa, only six percent of Africa’s exports go to the US, and so the utilisation of Agoa has been very limited for us to say that Africa cannot survive without it,” WTO Director General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told participants at a forum dubbed Africa Unstoppable Summit in New York.
“When we were talking to the US, what we were arguing for Africa was that this is the market of the future, and therefore there was a case for exempting the continent from the tariffs. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out.”
Kenya is among the African countries hoping to avoid hard knocks should the Agoa deal lapse.
More than half of Kenyan exports to the US are comprised of clothing, macadamia, coffee, titanium ores and concentrates, and black tea.
Three-quarters of US-bound exports benefit from duty-free access to the US under the Agoa policy, while some 300,000 jobs in Kenya are tied to the arrangement.
Kenya, which exported Sh95.24 billion to the US in 2024, anticipates concluding a trade deal with the US by year-end, to help cushion its exports to the key market if the Agoa deal is not extended.
Nairobi’s push for a new trade deal comes after the US imposed a 10 percent tariff on Kenya’s exports to Washington, effective August 1, 2025.
“Kenya is deeply interested in the commencement of formal negotiations with the US government. A reciprocal trade agreement is crucial for securing long-term access to the US market for Kenyan products and will provide the stability needed to unlock new investments,” said Trade Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui in August following a meeting with the US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer.
“A number of US firms have already expressed strong interest in establishing or expanding their operations in Kenya, and this framework will be a key enabler for that growth.”
A reciprocal trade pact refers to a trade policy where countries agree to reduce trade barriers, such as tariffs and quotas, on each other’s goods and services in an effort to make it easier and cheaper to trade.
On April 2 this year, US President Donald Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose a baseline tariff on all US trading partners in a bid to address what he termed as “absence of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships”.
The IEEPA provides the president with broad authority to regulate a variety of economic transactions following a declaration of national emergency.
Washington, however, paused enforcement of the tariffs initially for 90 days from April 10, which lapsed in July before being extended to August 1.
The escalation of tariff wars under the Trump administration has dimmed hopes that Agoa is likely to be extended after its sunset date at the end of September 2025, a move that is expected to bring to an end the 25-year-long trade pact.
Among the worst-hit economies by Trump tariffs are the Agoa beneficiaries Lesotho, Madagascar, Botswana, and South Africa, which have been slapped with 50 percent, 47 percent, 37 percent, and 30 percent tariffs, respectively.
The Agoa treaty, initiated under the Bill Clinton administration in 2000 to integrate sub-Saharan Africa into the global economy, was initially intended to last for 15 years from the year 2000 before being extended for a further 10 years in June 2015.
The WTO is now calling on African economies to embrace its newly formed Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement (IFDA) to plug the trade flows gap expected to emerge upon the lapsing of Agoa.
The IFDA was signed on February 13, 2024, as a recognition of the complementary relationship between investment flows and trade flows with participating members committing to accelerate cross-border cooperation and investment facilitation, especially in trading with Least Developed Countries.
So far, 127 members of the WTO have signed up to be part of IFDA, including Cameroon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Djibouti, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, and Liberia. The WTO says 39 African countries have signed up for IFDA.
“If the Agoa can be renewed, that will be a good thing, but now we have to spend more time fixing those things that stand in the way of the Continental Free Trade Area. We have to deal with logistical issues, infrastructure issues, and bureaucracy issues,” said Dr Iweala.
“At the WTO, we are negotiating an instrument that will help attract investment because of the perception of Africa, because of the perception of risk in the continent, which is not correct. It’s called the Investment Facilitation for Development to help clear the barriers to investment.”
