By Semafor,
This seems to be the reaction from Africa watchers in Washington to US President Donald Trump’s whirlwind of tariffs.
On the one hand, there’s a lot of talk about how the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act has been great for helping sub-Saharan African countries access the world’s biggest market. On the other, there’s a strong sense that AGOA has never quite delivered on its promise of boosting African exports in a meaningful and sustainable way.
In fact, with or without AGOA, the US is not a key export market for the vast majority of African countries, so most are insulated from the worst impact of this upheaval. The US imported $39 billion of goods in 2024 from Africa, “which is roughly what it imports from Mexico or Canada in just over a month,” analysts at Renaissance Capital noted.
But as the saying goes, you’ll miss it when it’s gone. Not so much just the $10 billion of AGOA trade, which was less than 15% of overall US-Africa trade in 2023, but more so what AGOA had come to represent as the flagship US economic policy on the continent. As things stand now, in less than three months, for better or for worse, the US has ripped away the heart of its long-term engagement in Africa by shutting down USAID and upending AGOA. There’s also an expectation it will shutter US-Africa Command (Africom).
There are many on both sides of these debates who see this moment as a true opportunity to reset the US-Africa relationship. One way or another, we’re set to find out what resetting really means.
