Naidoo said that the extension was not just a win for South Africa, where many exporters benefit from the Act, but also for the US, which has its own trade issues to work through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview<\/a> with CapeTalk, Naidoo said that having South Africa part of AGOA is just as important to the Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The US needs South Africa in AGOA as much as South Africa wants to remain, as part of receiving preferential access to the US market.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said that trade laws enacted by China may have placed pressure on the US to extend AGOA to protect its exports from Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China recently introduced a zero-tariff preference scheme for several African countries, including South Africa, on a temporary basis for qualifying goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This temporary tariff scheme came into effect on 1 May 2026 and will remain in effect until 30 April 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Naidoo said that the AGOA extension was “More of a counter because China has opened up its market completely to African countries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s not just in South Africa \u2013 if you look at the other countries that are eligible under AGOA (Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria), all of these countries have Chinese interests”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many South African exporters benefit from AGOA, with an estimated 22% of the country’s exports to the US qualifying for duty-free treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Estimates also suggest that approximately half a million South African jobs are dependent on the programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the two-year extension of AGOA is good news for South African exporters, Naidoo said that it was a “mild reprieve”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many South African businesses were hopeful for a longer extension of the trade agreement to help bring investor confidence to South Africa’s export industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s not enough time to make long-term strategic decisions,” Naidoo said, with South Africa previously pushing for a 15-year extension to the programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naidoo said that AGOA was an important agreement between the US and South Africa, despite “not-so-good relations” between the two countries recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Having South Africa part of AGOA is important to the Americans, despite our not-so-good relations over the last 24 months,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some US politicians have pushed to exclude South Africa from AGOA, with two bills introduced in 2025 to that end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trade Union Solidarity has said that South Africa’s exclusion from the programme could have devastating effects on the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “South Africa\u2019s exclusion will have a devastating impact on important local industries, particularly the automotive and agricultural sectors, and will put thousands of specialised jobs at risk,” the union said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Relations between the two countries have been strained for years, with recent trade tensions centring around planned tariffs of 12.5% on South African goods exported to the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US said these tariffs were planned due to South Africa’s lack of explicit laws blocking the import of goods made using slave labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before this, US President Donald Trump’s administration introduced a controversial Afrikaner refugee programme in response to claims of genocide in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa has objected to the programme, with the Department of International Relations and Cooperation saying it was not supported by evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The claim of a \u2018white genocide\u2019 in South Africa is widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence,” the department said in October 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The extension of AGOA is not only a win for South Africa, but also a much-needed win for the United States as China encroaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":861334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2097664074251182484","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2200447290775670","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17904805278331585","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[18336,16866,26451,26342],"class_list":["post-874504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-agoa","tag-cape-talk","tag-jervin-naidoo","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874504"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874577,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874504\/revisions\/874577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tension between South Africa and the US<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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