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# Africa's duty-free access to America gets two more years, tucked inside a shutdown bill
- URL: https://www.businessbagel.com/africas-duty-free-access-to-america-gets-two-more-years-tucked-inside-a-shutdown-bill/
- Published: 2026-09-04T03:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-04T02:59:59.000Z
- Description: The extension runs to the end of 2028 and still needs President Trump's signature, and even with it South African exporters keep paying industry tariffs.
- Author: Christian Maidman
- Tags: Policy, Business Bagel News

The African Growth and Opportunity Act got two more years this week, and it got them by riding inside a bill about keeping the American government funded. The House passed that continuing resolution on Tuesday by 370 votes to 48, mirroring a Senate vote in early August.

Representative Terri Sewell, a senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, says she worked the trade extension into the resolution. She called it “much-needed certainty to our African partners, American businesses, farmers and manufacturers”. The same resolution funds the US government to 11 December, which is why it moved at all.

## What the programme actually does

AGOA lets thousands of products from eligible sub-Saharan African countries into the United States without paying import duty, and Congress created it in 2000 to expand trade and investment with the continent. More than 30 countries qualify.

South Africa is the largest non-oil beneficiary. It exported $3.6 billion of goods under the programme in 2023, mostly vehicles, steel additives, jewellery and citrus, on figures reported in January this year. Across the whole region, trade with the United States came to about $50 billion in 2022 on the US Trade Representative's own analysis.

## Duty-free is not the same as tariff-free

The duty-free label does more work than it should. Even with a signature, countries in the programme still face industry-specific tariffs, and any found not to have kept forced labour out of their supply chains can be charged additional levies. Those levies are part of the administration's effort to rebuild its tariff wall after the Supreme Court struck down its sweeping import duties.

South Africa's place in the programme is not settled by this vote either. Republican Senator John Kennedy told a committee hearing in December that the country is a “unique problem for America”, and the January reporting noted that the value of the programme to South Africa is complicated by the reciprocal tariff regime and by the separate duties Washington has put on vehicles and components on national-security grounds.

Mauritius has already welcomed the extension, saying it gives eligible countries and businesses greater predictability. Everyone else in the programme is waiting on the same signature, and the resolution has now gone to President Trump for it.