US tariffs are hitting African exports hard. Now, governments and businesses must devise a Plan B to expand trade and grow their economies.
US President Donald Trump is not an Africa enthusiast; he has mocked Lesotho as a place “nobody has ever heard of ” and has never set foot on the continent.
In July, however, Africans were hopeful that Trump was mellowing. At a summit in Washington with the presidents of five African nations, he announced a shift from “aid to trade” in US efforts to strengthen ties with the continent.
Pivoting US-Africa relations toward trade and investment to foster self-reliance and mutual prosperity and move away from traditional aid dependency was critical, Trump said. He had already dismantled USAID, the principal US foreign aid agency, leaving a trail of negative social effects on the continent.
Many took this seeming pledge to expand trade with skepticism. And a few weeks later, Trump unveiled the Reciprocal Tariff Rate, sending shockwaves across 22 African nations suddenly slapped with duties ranging from 15% to 30%, that started on August 7.
South Africa, Algeria, and Libya were the worst hit, their tariffs set at 30%, while Tunisia got a rate of 25%. Tiny Lesotho and crisis-ridden Chad and Equatorial Guinea were not spared as their new rates hit 15%.
Bintu Zahara Sakor, a doctoral researcher at Norway’s Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), notes the contraction of promising more trade with Africa and then imposing punitive tariffs that are bound to be damaging to the continent.
“Diversification could empower Africa to dictate its trade narratives.”
Zahara Sakor, PRIO
“This mixed messaging creates uncertainty for African businesses and investors,” she says. The endgame is stifling the very trade the US purports to promote.
The Biggest Economies In The Crosshairs
While targeting only about half of the continent’s countries, two of its biggest economies, South Africa (30%) and Nigeria (15%), are on the list. Most of the others are grappling with extreme poverty and challenges of job creation. Among them is Botswana (15%), whose economy is in a recession.
By the numbers, African exports to the US are not substantial, accounting for only 1.5% of the continent’s collective GDP. Africa’s $34 billion of exports to the US are a mere 1.2% of total US imports and a drop in the ocean when juxtaposed with Washington’s $3.2 trillion global trade volume.
But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. For the past 25 years, US-Africa trade relations were defined primarily by duty-free access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). With his new tariff schedule, Trump has discarded AGOA, damaging the prospects for future exports cutting across automobiles, machinery, textiles, apparel, minerals, and agricultural products, among others.
“What we are witnessing under Trump is US imperialism,” argues Patrick Bond, professor of sociology at South Africa’s University of Johannesburg. The damages the tariffs inflict on the continent will be immense, he predicts.
Case in point is South Africa. The US is its second-largest trading partner after China, and its agricultural and automobile manufacturing industries bear the brunt of the tariffs. According to data from NAAMSA, South Africa’s auto industry lobbying group, the US is the third-largest destination for the country’s auto exports. South Africa shipped approximately $1.9 billion worth of vehicles to the US market in 2024, accounting for 6.5% of total exports. Owing to tariffs, however, auto exports have plummeted by an average of 60% this year.
South Africa is warning that a staggering 100,000 jobs are at risk from the new duties, devastating for a country with a 33% unemployment rate and where crime is among the highest globally. The only bright spot is the exemption of platinum, gold, and other minerals, which will continue to be zero-rated.
The situation is worse in Lesotho, which ranks among the poorest nations in the world with youth joblessness at 48%. The government has declared a “state of disaster,” reckoning the US tariffs will devastate the textile and apparels industry, which employs 40,000 people.
Lesotho is one of Africa’s largest garment exporters to the US, thanks to the AGOA. In 2024, it exported goods worth a cumulative $237.2 million to the US market, 75% of that garment exports. The industry accounts for roughly 20% of GDP.
Devising A Plan B
Trump’s tariffs call for “swift policy responses” to safeguard the continent’s long-term economic prospects, Sakor urges. The AGOA was set to expire on September 30; while Congress holds the power to renew it, the current administration is not concealing its aversion to the pact. With the new tariffs, the era of regional duty-free market access under the AGOA is over. In its place, Washington wants a shift toward bilateral deals that extract concessions like market access for US goods or alignment on geopolitical issues.
“US-Africa trade relations may become more fragmented and conditional, focusing on select ‘friendly’ nations with lower tariffs or new free trade agreements [FTAs],” Sakor says. Countries like Morocco, which has a binding FTA with the US, and Kenya, which is currently negotiating one, were among those spared the backlash.
With the US playing hard ball, Africa is at a point where it must devise a Plan B for future trade policy. One starting point could be deepening intra-Africa trade by accelerating implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
On paper, AfCFTA has the potential to boost intracontinental trade to 53% from around 18% currently, growing the manufacturing sector by $1 trillion, generating income worth $470 billion, and creating a whopping 14 million jobs by 2035, according to the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
Six years after the agreement was signed, however, the continent has yet to record any tangible benefits. Last year, trade was valued at $208 billion, a 7.7% increase from 2024, according to Afreximbank. Compounding the difficulties are disintegrating regional economic community blocs and rising non-tariff barriers.
“AfCFTA is encouraging in theory, but has not yet delivered mutually advantageous market opportunities,” observes Bond. For this reason, Africa could be forced onto a different course of action: strengthening trade ties with China while exploring opportunities in other global markets.
Over the past 25 years, China has risen to become Africa’s largest trading partner. Last year, trade with the people’s republic was valued at $294.3 billion, a staggering increase from $13.9 billion in 2000, according to Chinese government data. The amount dwarfs US-Africa twoway trade, which was valued at $104.9 billion in 2024.
Chinese engagement has been a mixed blessing. Beijing has flooded Africa with cheap goods, rendering nascent industries uncompetitive. This, combined with the lessons of Washington’s volatile behavior, suggests that the continent needs to cultivate balanced and reciprocal agreements with multiple trading partners.
“Diversification could empower Africa to dictate its trade narrative,” Sakor says, arguing that this is critical if the continent is to foster sustainable growth outside of unilateral preferences like AGOA. The European Union, Russia, India, Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East are some of the markets that offer Africa opportunities for deeper trade ties, Sakor notes.
Africa must decide whether to accept the higher US tariffs as the cost of doing business, build its ties further with China and Russia, or take a more diverse approach. The latter two, obviously, would only alienate the continent further from Washington.