The United States Trade Representative announced Monday that South Africa and Rwanda will be removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the duty-free trade programme that governs preferential access to the US market for eligible sub-Saharan African countries. The exclusions take effect from January 1.
Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative, said in a statement that the two countries had engaged in practices “inconsistent” with the programme’s eligibility criteria. “These concerning and pervasive practices 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,” Greer said.
The decision rests on a formal annual review process. AGOA, renewed until the end of 2028, is assessed each year, and the US president holds the authority to determine which countries qualify. Any removal requires 60 days’ notice to Congress and to the country concerned, procedural safeguards built into the statute that now frame the implementation of Monday’s announcement.
For South Africa, the ruling carries particular weight. The country is the programme’s largest beneficiary, and its eligibility had come under growing scrutiny as Washington intensified criticism of Pretoria, including allegations of discrimination against white Afrikaners that South Africa rejects as false. The decision lands despite recent diplomatic efforts. South Africa’s trade minister said on Thursday that the country hoped for a favorable outcome, arguing that continued market access would serve the interests of both nations. That hope followed a more cautious public position from President Cyril Ramaphosa, who a little over a week earlier said the country should “prepare” for an adverse decision.
Trade Minister Parks Tau, speaking to reporters in Johannesburg last week, sought to steady expectations ahead of the ruling. Regardless of the decision on AGOA, he said, South Africa’s economy would remain stable as it pursues other international markets.
Rwanda’s exclusion sits within a broader pattern of escalating US economic pressure tied to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Washington has accused Kigali of backing the armed M23 rebel group, a charge the Rwandan government denies. Last week, the United States sanctioned the Rwandan defense ministry over those alleged ties. With Rwandan support, according to the accusations, M23 has seized swathes of eastern DRC, a region rich in minerals coveted by world powers, since the group took up arms again in 2021.
Rwandan officials have pushed back against that framing. Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told AFP last week that his country should not be made a “scapegoat” for events in the DRC. Speaking on the sidelines of a Russia-Africa summit in Moscow, before the US sanctions were imposed, he argued that the crisis next door was primarily an internal matter. “The situation in the DRC, the political situation, the security situation, is mainly a Congolese issue,” he said, adding that “Rwanda must not be held as a scapegoat for what is happening in Congo forever.”
With the exclusions set to take effect on January 1, attention now turns to whether either government will contest the decision within the notice period, and to what the annual review mechanism means for the remaining beneficiaries of a programme whose eligibility criteria Washington has shown itself willing to enforce against even its largest participant.