New private deal from South Africa submitted to the United States
Independent business organisation Sakeliga has submitted a new deal proposal to the United States to allow US-friendly firms to retain duty-free access to the US market even where national governments fail to meet the criteria.
Sakeliga submitted its proposal to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on 15 May 2026.
It said a renewed African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) will benefit sections of African countries that want to meet its market-based standards and ethical requirements.
Speaking in an interview with BizNews, Russell Lamberti, executive director at Sakeliga, said that the submitted proposal is part of a review process to modernise the AGOA.
Lamberti explained that AGOA is currently under intense scrutiny in Washington and has only been extended until 31 December 2026.
The AGOA framework allows qualifying African countries to export goods to the United States without paying tariffs.
However, he said many American lawmakers and policymakers have become “increasingly disillusioned” with the arrangement and believe it is not working as intended.
According to Lamberti, Sakeliga’s submission seeks to make AGOA more flexible by moving away from the current all-or-nothing approach.
This is where an entire country either qualifies for benefits or loses them based on the actions of its national government. The proposal introduces what Lamberti called subnational differentiation.
This would allow individual companies, provinces, municipalities, or economic zones to qualify for preferential US market access even if their national governments fail to meet Washington’s requirements.
He argued that businesses could demonstrate compliance with US standards independently of national government policies and still benefit from lower tariffs.
In South Africa’s case, America have made a set of initial demands to begin the normalisation of diplomatic relations.
These include concerns over expropriation without compensation, BEE policies, South Africa’s foreign policy alignments, and the government’s response to chants such as “Kill the Boer”.
Lamberti argued that these demands are unlikely to be met by the national government because they conflict with “some of the ANC’s vital interests”.
Eligibility would depend on market- and merit-based principles
As a result, he believes South Africa faces an increasing risk of higher tariffs, either through AGOA reviews or separate US trade investigations.
“In our view, whether it’s through AGOA or through executive action, tariffs are going up across the board in South Africa,” he said.
Sakeliga’s proposal is intended to provide what Lamberti described as an “off-ramp” from these punitive measures.
He proposed a company-level compliance system. Businesses could voluntarily register their adherence to market-based principles and demonstrate minimal compliance with race-based policies where legally possible.
“The beauty of this is that this is strictly non-racial. The requirement for these benefits is not a race requirement. It is a principal requirement,” Lamberti said.
Under the proposal, eligibility would not depend on ownership demographics but rather on whether companies align with the principles Sakeliga describes as market-based and merit-based.
Lamberti acknowledged that administering such a system could appear complex, but argued that international trade already contains extensive mechanisms for tracing products and verifying compliance.
He said agriculture would be particularly suited to the model because farms and crops are geographically identifiable.
While he believes there is growing support for these ideas, Lamberti stressed that the proposal remains in its early stages.
Around 130 submissions were made as part of the AGOA review process, and Sakeliga believes its proposal is receiving serious consideration.
“We think ours is near the top of the pile,” he said. However, he cautioned that AGOA reform ultimately requires action from the US Congress and remains a “long, slow, complex” process.
Despite the uncertainty, Lamberti said Sakeliga sees the proposal as an opportunity to help South African businesses maintain access to the US market amid what it views as an inevitable escalation in trade barriers.
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