U.S. President Donald Trump signed an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, a longtime U.S.-Africa trade program, pushing the renewal deadline out only until Dec. 31, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Tuesday. The agreement had been left in doubt after Trump’s administration allowed it to expire while enforcing a reciprocal-tariff approach, creating uncertainty for businesses and governments that rely on duty-free access to sell certain goods into the U.S. market.
AGOA, introduced in 2000 under then-President Bill Clinton, is designed to offer duty-free access for qualifying sub-Saharan African nations while allowing the U.S. to remove countries that fail to meet eligibility requirements such as establishing market-based economies and upholding democratic standards and human rights. Uganda was removed by the Biden administration in 2024 after it enacted a strict anti-gay law that the U.S. said violated human rights.
The U.S. trade office said AGOA provides eligible countries duty-free access to the U.S. for some 1,800 products, including crude oil, cars and car parts, clothing, textiles and agricultural produce. The trade program underpins much of the U.S.-Africa trade relationship, which the U.S. trade office valued at more than $100 billion in 2024.
The agreement had been due for renewal when the Trump administration let it expire at the end of September. AP reported that AGOA had included 34 African countries at the time, and businesses in those nations had warned that the end of the deal could put tens of thousands of jobs at risk.
The renewal timeframe is shorter than past extensions, including a prior 10-year extension when AGOA came up for renewal in 2015. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement Tuesday that the Trump administration would work with Congress to “modernize the program to align with President Trump’s America First trade policy,” without detailing possible changes.
South Africa, which has been described as one of AGOA’s biggest beneficiaries and the continent’s most advanced economy, welcomed the renewal but expressed concern about the short timeline and the need for more clarity on how the program will change. South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry Parks Tau told South African outlet News24 that he hoped the U.S. would soon “provide certainty” about the AGOA details.
The AP report also said the Trump administration has applied political pressure on two of Africa’s largest economies, South Africa and Nigeria, raising questions about where they might fit if AGOA is reshaped in ways tied to the administration’s tariff approach. It cited U.S. criticism of South Africa’s government and described U.S. tariffs of 30% as among the highest globally, and it said some had feared South Africa could be removed from AGOA due to diplomatic fallout.
For Nigeria, the report said U.S. ties have been strained over Trump’s allegations about persecution of Christians in Africa’s most populous country, which officials say are inaccurate. Separately, the report said Trump’s “America First” policy has been especially hard on Africa through cuts to billions of dollars for the now-dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development while tariffs were imposed, a combination described as difficult for some countries to absorb.
The U.S. trade office said the U.S. would seek changes alongside the program, including pushing African nations to remove trade barriers to American imports. In that framing, it said AGOA would follow the America First policy and “must demand more from our trading partners,” as some African countries consider expanding ties with other regions or countries, including China, which the report said is already Africa’s largest trading partner.