Thousands of businesses across sub-Saharan Africa are on tenterhooks as they wait to hear the fate of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).<\/p>\n
First passed in 2020, AGOA provides duty-free access to the US market to 32 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. But it\u2019s due to expire on Tuesday, with no extension yet agreed.<\/p>\n
White House officials say President Trump supports a one-year renewal of the law, but the clock is ticking, and a lot hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n
Without AGOA, Africa\u2019s edge in the export market will erode, putting hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. Many countries, including Kenya, Lesotho, and Madagascar, would see duties on their exports more than double. That\u2019s on top of the hefty tariffs already introduced at the start of this year.<\/p>\n
Advocates say it will also be bad for US firms\u2014restricting choices and raising prices on imported raw materials.<\/p>\n
The law\u2019s only realistic path for renewal is to be attached to a stopgap funding bill Republicans are pushing to the keep the US government open beyond Tuesday. For many African businesses, their ability to stay open is also at stake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of businesses across sub-Saharan Africa are on tenterhooks as they wait to hear the fate of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). First passed in 2020, AGOA provides duty-free access to the US market to 32 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. But it\u2019s due to expire on Tuesday, with no extension yet agreed. White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,32,2362,31,30,27],"tags":[1653,1086],"class_list":["post-18047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","category-north-africa","category-southern-africa","category-west-africa","tag-african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa","tag-madagascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}