The United States will remove Rwanda and South Africa from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), according to reporting by The EastAfrican and the BBC. The change takes effect in 2027, when 19 African countries will be ineligible for the US trade programme, Business Insider Africa reports.
AGOA gives eligible African countries duty-free access to US markets. Losing that status means exporters in Rwanda and South Africa will face tariffs on goods they currently ship to the US without them. The EastAfrican frames the decision as a potential blow to both economies.
South Africa has responded to its expulsion from the programme, BusinessTech reports. Daily Nation also covered the US decision to pull both countries from AGOA.
The reporting does not detail the US administration's stated reasons for the removals, and no figures on the value of affected trade appear in the source material. Donald Trump is named in BBC coverage as the figure behind the move.
The broader list of 19 ineligible countries signals that the 2027 changes go beyond these two economies, though the available reporting does not name the others.
What to watch next: how Rwanda and South Africa respond formally, and whether the US sets out conditions for restoring eligibility before the 2027 change takes effect.