JOHANNESBURG - South Africa’s exclusion from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is not entirely unexpected, agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo says.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative announced on Monday that South Africa and Rwanda would be excluded from the programme, which provides eligible African countries with duty-free access to the US market.
The decision is a blow to both economies, which the US has accused of engaging in practices inconsistent with AGOA’s eligibility criteria.
The US is an important market for South African agriculture, accounting for about 4% of the country’s agricultural exports, according to Sihlobo.
South Africa’s main agricultural exports to the US include citrus, berries, grapes, raisins, wine, fruit juices, apples, pears, apricots and nuts.
However, Sihlobo says losing AGOA benefits will not be catastrophic for the agricultural sector.
“For some time, many South Africans have been thinking that this day would come,” he said.
READ: SA's AGOA future hangs in the balance as US reviews eligibility
“Not only because of the current political environment, but you can go back to 2014, which was a period when these conversations were taking place about whether South Africa qualified,” he added.
Sihlobo argues that South Africa, as an upper-middle-income country, should have transitioned out of AGOA years ago and pursued a full bilateral trade agreement with the US.
However, South Africa’s membership of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) complicated the process, as it could not pursue a separate bilateral trade agreement outside the customs union. The country also continued lobbying to retain the benefits of AGOA’s unilateral trade arrangement.
“Looking back, if we had graduated out of AGOA, as we were pressured to do then, and started the conversations about a trade agreement, we would have been in a different climate than what we are seeing now,” Sihlobo said.
He cautioned, however, that having a trade agreement does not necessarily protect countries from significant changes in US trade policy.
Sihlobo also said there was confusion about the implications of South Africa’s exclusion, stressing that it did not amount to a complete ban on South African exports to the US.
Instead, South African products would face the applicable Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariffs, as well as any additional duties imposed by the current US administration.
South Africa is due to exit the programme in January.
READ: SA citrus and nut industries resilient amid AGOA uncertainty
According to Sihlobo, tariffs on South African agricultural products entering the US would increase from 12.5% to 15.9%, an additional 3.4 percentage points.
This could make some South African products less competitive in the American market.
However, he says the sector has previously managed to remain competitive despite higher tariffs. In 2025, South African agricultural exports to the US remained strong even when tariffs reached about 30%.