President Donald Trump has told Congress he will remove South Africa and Rwanda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the 26-year-old program that lets qualifying African countries sell goods to the United States without tariffs. The change takes effect Jan. 1, 2027, according to notices sent Monday to Congress and to both governments.
Two majority-Black nations lose the access. South Africa is the program’s largest beneficiary: US duty-free imports under it were worth $1.6 billion in 2025, and losing it adds a 3.4% tariff on top of the 12.5% the US already charges, according to the South African press. The people who feel it first are farm and factory workers, not the officials the White House is angry at.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the two governments pursue policies that “include, but are not limited to, barriers that undermine American trade and investment and practices that pose a threat to US national security and foreign policy interests in the region.” The statement gave no specific examples for either country. South African outlets reported the American complaints include high tariffs on US poultry, wine and spirits, and preferred access given to the European Union.
The political backdrop is long. Trump has accused South Africa’s government of being anti-white over its affirmative action policies, a charge the government rejects, and has attacked its criticism of Israel and its ties to Iran. South Africa was left out of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta last week. Rwanda’s defense ministry was sanctioned by the US Treasury barely a week ago over its support for the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo.
South Africa’s exposure is already visible. Vehicle export earnings to the US dropped to R8 billion in 2025 from R17.7 billion in 2024. Cosatu, the country’s largest labor federation, warned of job losses in agriculture and manufacturing, and the Citrus Growers’ Association called the decision “a blow to the industry.”
South Africa’s trade minister, Parks Tau, had said the country made “very generous offers” in negotiations and pointed to more than $5 billion in US investment commitments over the past year. South Africa also supplies 12 of the 50 minerals Washington considers critical, which is the leverage Pretoria has left.
The Rwanda case is different in kind. The sanctions answer a documented backing of an armed group in a war that has displaced millions of Congolese, and a government that arms a rebel force should answer for it. But a tariff wall does not reach the generals. It reaches the garment and agricultural workers whose jobs depend on the American market.
That is the problem with using trade access as a weapon against African governments: the bill lands on the people with the least say. Black South African workers did not write the poultry tariffs, and Rwandan seamstresses did not arm M23. If Washington wants to punish governments, it can target their officials. Cutting off the jobs of their workers is a choice.
AGOA itself runs out at the end of 2026 unless Congress extends it again, and the White House has not said what, if anything, it would offer the countries it keeps.
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