House passes sweeping ‘duty free’ pact for African imports

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for three years, through the end of 2028. Known as the AGOA Extension Act, the bill was introduced in the House by Representative Jason Smith (R-Mo.) in early December. It passed the House with wide bipartisan support, with 340 members voting in favor and 54 opposed.

AGOA — a preferential trade agreement between the United States and certain eligible countries in sub-Saharan Africa — allows over 1,800 products from these countries to enter the United States duty free, including in the leading African export industries of textiles and oil. It was last renewed in 2015 for 10 years, and expired at the end of September 2025.

The bill, which would offer qualifying products that have been imported since AGOA’s expiration retroactive tariff benefits, now heads to the Senate. If passed there, it will arrive at President Trump's desk for him to sign into law. Although the president has largely opposed free and preferential trade deals that provide tariff benefits for non-Americans, the president has come out in support of short-term AGOA renewal while debates take place over the agreement’s details and its long-term future.

Smith’s bill was the second of two introduced last year seeking to extend AGOA. The other was introduced by Senator John Kennedy (R-La). Though mostly similar to Smith’s bill, Kennedy’s included a provision that would mandate a review of the United States’ bilateral relationship with South Africa. This follows on last year’s rift between President Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during which Trump accused the South African government of expropriating land from white South Africans without fair compensation as well as failing to stop a genocide against the country’s white population, for which there is no evidence.

Originally passed by Congress in 2000 and signed into law by President Clinton, AGOA’s success has been debated in recent years amid questions about what an AGOA renewal should look like, or even if it should be renewed at all. The preferential trade deal has largely failed to meet the heavy expectations placed upon it in its early years, evinced in part by the fact that exports from Africa to the United States have failed to increase substantially in the two-and-a-half decades since the agreement’s inception.

But AGOA remains the United States’ most visible effort to support Africa’s economic goals. In a world of great power competition, with the Chinese investing heavily in China’s trade and infrastructure development, losing AGOA would signal further American retreat from a continent questioning the United States’ commitment as a partner. Since Trump took office, he has frustrated many Africans by shuttering the United States Agency for International Development, implementing widespread tariffs (some of which apply to goods that would otherwise enter the U.S. duty free through AGOA), and instituting a travel ban, which bans or restricts travel to the United States from 26 African countries.