TSHEPO KOKA | Goodbye, Agoa — and look, the sky has not fallen

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Well, well. Washington has pulled the Agoa card, and South Africa has not quite fallen off its chair.

For once, perhaps we should resist our instinct to panic whenever the US clears its throat. The Donald Trump administration has terminated South Africa’s preferential access under Agoa (African Growth & Opportunity Act) from January 2027. It is a serious development, but the response from Pretoria deserves something we do not always readily offer the government: a little credit.

The department of trade, industry & competition (DTIC) says South Africa offered additional concessions and attempted to address US concerns while protecting its constitutional obligations and legitimate regulatory requirements. Pretoria did what a government is supposed to do: negotiate, make reasonable compromises without abandoning its principles, and prepare for an unfavourable outcome.

Of course, we must not confuse a negotiating effort with a diplomatic victory. But South Africa should not be expected to surrender its policy independence simply because a powerful trading partner has become displeased. There is a difference between being commercially sensible and being politically available for blackmail.

The DTIC says Agoa exports amounted to about $1.7bn (about R28bn at this week’s exchange rate) in 2025, down from about $4bn in 2024. The 2025 figure represented roughly 10% of our exports to the US and about 1% of our total global exports. That is not pocket change. Businesses and workers in exposed industries could suffer. But neither is it the collapse of the South African economy, nor does losing preferential access mean our goods are automatically barred from the US.

This is where a little econometric discipline would be useful. National averages can be comforting, but they can also conceal pain. A trade flow representing 1% of total exports may be critical to a particular producer, factory or community. We must establish precisely who is exposed, which industries can redirect their exports, what the employment implications are and how much adjustment businesses can realistically absorb.

The interesting question is why we behave as though the US is the principal gateway to our economic salvation. It is an important trading partner. We should retain that relationship, negotiate where possible and pursue a sensible commercial settlement. But the US is a market, not our economic guardian.

Export growth is important, but it does not automatically translate into development

South Africa has spent years talking about trade diversification. We have the African Continental Free Trade Area, Sadc, and commercial opportunities across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Brics and Latin America. Perhaps the time has come to move beyond the diplomatic vocabulary and actually sell something. A trade mission is not a market. A memorandum of understanding is not an export order. A ministerial photograph is certainly not a job. The government should now tell us how many businesses have entered alternative markets; how much additional trade has been secured; and how many jobs have been created or protected.

Of course, finding new buyers is not as simple as changing a destination on an export document. Standards, logistics, financing, distribution and established commercial relationships matter. But these are precisely the capabilities we should have been developing all along.

South Africa’s vulnerability is not simply that the US can withdraw a trade preference. It is that we have not developed enough productive depth, market diversity and commercial resilience to make such decisions less consequential. Trade diversification without industrial development is merely the redistribution of dependence.

We need businesses capable of producing competitively, infrastructure that moves goods efficiently, reliable ports and railways, skilled workers and domestic supply chains that retain more value within our economy. We must also ask: how much employment and domestic value are exports actually generating?

Export growth is important, but it does not automatically translate into development. This is why the government deserves credit for its engagement with the US. But it must now be judged on delivery. The test is not how many alternative markets appear in a presentation. It is whether South African businesses can access them, compete in them and create sustainable economic activity.

There is no need to turn this into an anti-US crusade. Mature trade relations require negotiation, mutual benefit and respect for the sovereignty of both parties. If a mutually acceptable arrangement can be reached, excellent. But we should not negotiate from the assumption that losing preferential access is the end of our economic possibilities.

If this episode persuades us to stop renting our economic confidence from Washington and start building it at home, perhaps we will have learnt something valuable. We need the US as a trading partner. We do not need it as the permanent reference point for our economic self-esteem.

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