AGOAing, AGOAing, Gone?

The United States (US) House of Representatives has passed a one-year extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), replacing the three-year renewal approved earlier this month. Many South African analysts think that matters a lot, but actually it doesn’t. AGOA in and of itself is not a particularly useful measure against which to judge the temperature of Pretoria’s relationship with Washington or the economic advantages the country draws from the US.

The change reflects pressure from the Trump administration, which has grown openly frustrated with the programme and has described it as little more than “a giveaway”.

AGOA is a US trade preference programme that grants eligible sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the American market. The programme expired in September last year.

The one-year extension, now awaiting Senate approval, is intended to give Washington time to reassess AGOA’s structure and, crucially, to reconsider which countries should continue to benefit from preferential access. While the programme itself is likely to survive, participation is no longer being treated as automatic.

No country faces greater uncertainty in this reassessment than South Africa.

The bilateral relationship between Pretoria and Washington has deteriorated sharply under the Trump administration. South Africa’s foreign policy posture has become a central concern. Its deepening alignment with Russia and China, participation in naval exercises alongside Iran, and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice have all generated serious friction with Washington.

Senior figures within the African National Congress have repeatedly accused the US of imperialism and economic coercion. Relations reached a new low in December, when South African immigration authorities raided a US-operated Afrikaner asylum processing facility in Johannesburg and detained American staff. The State Department warned of “severe consequences”.

Against this backdrop, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has publicly described South Africa as “a unique problem” for the United States. That framing is consequential. Because AGOA eligibility ultimately rests with the president, the programme functions less as a trade instrument than as a political signal, revealing the depth of strain in the broader US–South Africa relationship.

Today, contrary to popular belief, exclusion from AGOA would not move the dial much on South Africa’s already weak economic and trade performance.

Total exports to the United States from South Africa have historically counted for between six and seven percent of total exports while exports under AGOA accounted for between two and three percent.

Key items that qualified for AGOA advantages may still be exported to the US even if South Africa is excluded.

The trouble for South Africa is not explicitly tied to remaining in AGOA. The problem is rather that if South Africa cannot even qualify for that programme, its prospects for striking a greater and vastly more beneficial trade agreement with the US are practically zero.

On that front, the warning signs are mounting. South Africa has failed to conclude a substantive trade agreement with the US and continues to face some of the highest American tariffs globally. At a moment of heightened tension, Pretoria does not have an ambassador in Washington.

The Trump administration has articulated clear expectations. It wants greater policy alignment on foreign affairs, more reciprocal trade arrangements, and the removal of South African tariff and non-tariff barriers for American firms.

South Africa’s diplomacy in Washington should be judged on more than the fate of AGOA. The real test is whether it can secure a large new trade and investment pact with the US, one that helps American capital catch up to China’s fixed investment footprint across Africa, and channels meaningful investment into South Africa. Without that, the country’s fixed investment rate will remain far below emerging market norms, and growth will stay stuck.