AGOA's annual review ends in termination for South Africa and Rwanda, and the statute leaves sixty days to undo it

The notice reached Congress on November 2, 2026, which by this journal’s count is sixty days before January 1, 2027. That interval is not a coincidence of the calendar. On that date the President told Congress and the governments of South Africa and Rwanda that he intends to end both countries’ designation under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) as of the first day of 2027¹. The statute requires at least sixty days’ notice before a termination and makes a termination take effect on January 1 of the year after the President’s finding³. The outcome of the annual eligibility review was therefore bound to arrive about now, and to land on New Year’s Day. What is new is its reach. South Africa has been the program’s largest beneficiary^11,12, and the government has chosen the program’s termination clause rather than its narrower power to suspend particular goods. A preference program written to reward economic reform is being used, openly, as an instrument of foreign policy, and the statute was drafted to allow exactly that.

The instrument: how does the AGOA termination clause work?

AGOA is Title I of the Trade and Development Act of 2000. It works by adding to the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) in Title V of the Trade Act of 1974: it lets the President grant duty-free treatment to products that GSP leaves out, along with preferences for certain textiles and apparel². Designation rests on two sets of criteria. Section 104 of AGOA (19 U.S.C. 3703) asks whether a country has established, or is making continual progress toward, a market-based economy, the rule of law, political pluralism, due process, the elimination of barriers to U.S. trade and investment, anti-poverty policies, a system to combat corruption and protection of internationally recognized worker rights². The country also must not undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests or commit gross violations of human rights². The GSP criteria in section 502 of the Trade Act apply as well^2,4.

The operative clause is section 506A of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2466a). Subsection (a)(2) requires the President to monitor and review each country every year³. Subsection (a)(3)(A) then removes his discretion at the decisive point. If he finds that a beneficiary is not making continual progress, he “shall terminate” the designation, effective January 1 of the following year³. Subsection (a)(3)(B) bars termination unless Congress and the country receive at least sixty days’ notice of the intention and the reasons for it³. Section 502(f)(2), the parallel GSP provision, contains a similar sixty-day notice rule⁴.

The statute offers a middle course, and it matters here. Under section 506A(c)(1) the President may instead withdraw, suspend or limit duty-free treatment for particular articles if he judges that this would do more to promote compliance than full termination, again after sixty days’ notice³. Rwanda has lived under that middle course since 2018. Proclamation 9771 of July 30, 2018 found that Rwanda was not meeting the requirements but that suspending benefits for “all AGOA-eligible goods in the apparel sector” would be “more effective in promoting compliance” than termination⁸. USTR’s 2026 review notice still listed Rwanda as a beneficiary with apparel benefits suspended from July 31, 2018². The November decision moves Rwanda from the partial remedy to the full one.

The mechanism

The review that produced the decision opened on June 30, 2026, under docket USTR-2026-0298, with written comments due by July 13 and a public hearing on July 23 at USTR’s offices². It was framed, at the time, as a review for calendar year 2027 “if reauthorized”². The program then stood on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, which extended duty-free treatment, the regional apparel program and the third-country fabric program only through December 31, 2026, as Proclamation 11030 of May 19, 2026 put into the tariff schedule⁵. The Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (Pub. L. 119-103) later extended the apparel preferences through December 31, 2028⁶, and trade counsel describe AGOA as now authorized through the same date¹². A termination therefore removes the two countries from a program that will otherwise outlast it by two years.

USTR’s statement gives the reasons only by category. For South Africa it lists barriers to U.S. trade and investment, corruption, and threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. For Rwanda the list is longer: trade and investment barriers, the rule of law, political pluralism, worker rights, human rights and national security and foreign policy interests¹. Each item maps onto a section 104 criterion². Ambassador Jamieson Greer called them “concerning and pervasive practices” that “include, but are not limited to,” the barriers and security concerns named¹. The Associated Press reported that the statement gave no specific examples¹⁰.

For entries, the consequence is a change of tariff treatment rather than a new duty. From January 1, goods of either country that now enter free of duty under AGOA, or under the GSP tariff lines that remain available to AGOA beneficiaries even though GSP itself expired at the end of 2020, would pay ordinary rates^3,12. In earlier cases, designation changes were carried into the Harmonized Tariff Schedule by proclamation amending general note 16(a) of the schedule⁵. No such proclamation for South Africa or Rwanda had been published as of November 9. Neither USTR’s statement nor coverage of it lists affected tariff lines or gives customs filing instructions^1,12.

The effect

South Africa’s own figures suggest the trade effect will be smaller than the program’s history implies. Its Department of Trade, Industry and Competition says AGOA exports were about $1.7 billion in 2025, down from $4 billion in 2024, and about 1 percent of the country’s global exports⁹. In 2025, it says, roughly 89 percent of South African exports to the United States entered on standard most-favored-nation terms, and about 10 percent under AGOA, down from 28 percent the year before⁹. Reuters reported that AGOA shipments were mainly motor vehicles and parts, farm products and wine¹¹. The sources do not settle what drove the fall between 2024 and 2025, and this piece does not attempt to.

On the American side the direct cost falls on importers of those goods, who will pay the ordinary duty from January 1^3,12. Rep. Richard Neal warned that the move could disrupt the U.S. economy, according to the AP¹⁰. Pretoria also points to the wider relationship. It puts bilateral trade at $28.8 billion in 2025 and says more than 600 American companies in South Africa support about 134,600 jobs⁹. Rwanda’s exposure is smaller and differently composed. Its main exports to the United States are coffee, tea and minerals, Reuters reported¹¹, and its apparel was already outside the program⁸.

The two governments’ accounts of the dispute do not meet. The administration presents the decision as the result of an interagency review against statutory criteria and says it is “working to ensure our African partners take the necessary steps to meet the eligibility criteria”¹. The South African ministry says it went beyond its 2015 concessions and tabled further offers through formal channels while safeguarding biosecurity, its constitution and its WTO obligations, and it objects that the United States is “now raising new issues” outside the talks that began in 2025⁹. Minister Parks Tau said the decision “does not define the broader relationship”⁹. The AP reported that Washington has pressed Pretoria on affirmative action, land expropriation and crimes against farmers, and that South Africa denies being anti-white¹⁰. On Rwanda, the AP noted that the United States had separately sanctioned Rwanda’s defense ministry over its support for the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo¹⁰.

The longer view

Termination under section 506A has precedents, and their record is mostly one of return. Proclamation 9834 of December 2018 terminated Mauritania; Proclamation 10692 of December 29, 2023 found that it had since met the criteria and redesignated it⁷. The same 2023 proclamation terminated the Central African Republic, Gabon, Niger and Uganda, effective January 1, 2024⁷. Gabon was redesignated, effective January 1, 2026, by Proclamation 11030, on the basis of “actions the Government of Gabon has taken”⁵. The sixteen sub-Saharan countries outside the program for 2026 include the Central African Republic, Niger and Uganda, all removed under the same clause^2,7. The statute treats designation as revocable in both directions, every year³.

South Africa differs from those cases in scale. The earlier removals involved smaller beneficiaries; this one involves the program’s largest user^11,12. It also differs in method. In 2018, against Rwanda, the government chose the narrower section 506A(c) suspension⁸. This time, for both countries, it chose the full measure.

What remains open is the period the statute itself creates. South Africa’s ministry describes the next sixty days as a window to engage⁹, and the administration says countries can take steps to meet the criteria¹. A termination has not yet been proclaimed. The next fixed point is January 1, 2027, and the next document to watch is the proclamation that would amend general note 16(a) before then.