On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), sending a lifeline to sub-Saharan African exporters who had been bracing for a prolonged trade vacuum. The bill, H.R. 6500, passed 340–54 and now heads to the Senate.
Catch up: Since 2000, AGOA has given eligible African countries duty-free access to the US market, helping anchor industries such as apparel, agribusiness, and light manufacturing. More importantly, it has provided predictability on tariffs and long-term access to US buyers. Investors built factories, hired workers, and structured supply chains around the assumption that access to the US market would not suddenly disappear.
Recently, that assumption has been under pressure. The Trump administration’s renewed focus on tariffs and bilateral trade deals has weakened confidence in long-term preferential trade programmes. AGOA briefly expired in September 2025, but the lapse, even though temporary, exposed the fragility of such trade arrangements and how quickly exporters can be left scrambling for alternatives.
Competitors like China moved quickly and targeted Kenya, proposing a sweeping zero-tariff deal that would cover all Kenyan-made goods. For Nairobi, the appeal is obvious: China already absorbs millions of dollars in trade flows from Kenya (and several other African countries), and offers scale without the political conditionality that shadows US trade policy.
The risk, however, is substitution rather than diversification. AGOA plugs Kenya into high-value US supply chains; China offers volume, not necessarily margin.
House approval restores momentum, but only partially. Senate action will determine whether AGOA regains its role as a credible trade anchor for Sub-Saharan Africa or continues to drift into a cycle of short-term extensions in the global trade order.
