If South Africa were excluded from Agoa, the country would face an additional most-favoured-nation tariff of around 3.4% — on top of the existing tariffs the US administration has added.
At present, some South African products enter the US market at 12.5% tariffs (the so-called Liberation Day tariffs). Without Agoa, these would rise to 15.9%, slightly reducing the competitiveness of South African agricultural products in the US.
One could argue that while this would be a challenging path, it would not necessarily be as catastrophic as in the past, when we faced much higher US tariffs and still managed to compete.
For example, in 2025, the South African farming sector faced tariffs of around 30%. Still, agricultural exports to the US remained strong at $504m, down only 3% from the previous year.
Losing access to Agoa is a possibility, not a given, and we continue to work to support efforts to retain access.
We discuss the details in this week’s episode of AgriView.
