China's Non-Tariff Gift to Africa is Really a Message to America

On May Day, China will extend zero-tariff access to 53 African countries, the largest unilateral trade concession any major economy has ever offered the continent, with no reciprocity required – it is one of the sharpest diplomatic moves of the decade.

Read this announcement against what the United States (US) has simultaneously done.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the cornerstone of US-Africa trade relations for 25 years, expired in September 2025 and was extended by just one year, with Congress explicitly signalling the need for a broader reassessment.

The programme's challenges are reflected in the numbers: in 2024, aggregate African exports to the US under AGOA fell to their lowest volume in the programme's history at roughly $8 billion (excluding the Covid-19 period), while total African exports to the US stood at approximately $39 billion.

By comparison, African exports to China reached about $116 billion, nearly triple the American figure, as China extended its position as Africa's largest trading partner for the sixteenth consecutive year.

Against that backdrop, Beijing offers zero tariffs to all African countries, excluding only Eswatini, which continues to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, rather than China.

What China Actually Trades with Africa

Africa is not a diversified trade partner to China. It is a commodity provider. Between 2000 and 2022, about 89% of Africa’s exports to China came from raw materials such as oil, copper, cobalt, and iron ore. Agriculture made up 6%, and manufacturing just 5%.

Exports to China have grown more than twentyfold since 2000, but that growth reflects China buying more raw materials, not Africa moving up the value chain.

Tariffs were never the barrier to changing this. Africa does not have the manufacturing base, energy reliability, logistics infrastructure, or industrial depth to compete globally in processed goods. Removing tariffs doesn’t fix this and China knows that. The concession costs Beijing almost nothing in practice, while generating enormous political capital.

The One Place It Could Matter, and the Limits of That

For South Africa, tariff removal is potentially meaningful in one sector: agriculture. But even here, China decides what it wants, from whom, and on what terms.

South Africa currently exports roughly R18 billion in agricultural goods to China annually, about 0.4% of China's food import market. Wine faces duties of 14–20%, macadamias 12%, and several processed food goods higher. Removing those improves margins on products China already buys.

If South Africa doubled its share to 0.8%, that's roughly R19 billion in additional export revenue. Real money, but not transformative, and not guaranteed in a market where Chile, Australia, and the US compete aggressively.

The harder constraint is that for anything China doesn't yet formally accept, zero tariffs are irrelevant. China's biosecurity authority operates a border entirely separate from customs. If South Africa’s products don’t comply with China’s strict biosecurity protocols, it means no entry, at any tariff rate. Stone fruit received approval in late 2025 and can move. Cherries and blueberries, two high-value categories with strong Chinese demand, remain in protocol negotiations with no confirmed timeline.

Beef exports are another factor. In 2024, South Africa successfully expanded its reach into China, which became its third-largest external market. Then outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in mid-2025 triggered a blanket suspension. A memorandum of understanding signed between Pretoria and Beijing just months earlier was supposed to prevent exactly this, allowing exports from disease-free provinces to continue. The risk was too large, and Beijing enforced the suspension anyway. Total beef exports fell 26% by year end, compared to 2024. The tariff on beef is now zero but until FMD is resolved no beef can enter.

China’s announcement will not transform African exports or break the dominance of commodities. What Beijing has shrewdly managed to do is earn diplomatic credit at relatively little economic cost, reinforcing access to the raw materials it already buys at scale. Washington, meanwhile, pays the price for years of treating Africa as an afterthought.