Africa is the fastest growing continent with the youngest population—critical resources in a world with an aging population and slowing growth. When the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was first enacted in 2000, it provided for duty-free access for most sub-Saharan exports to the United States for 15 years. It was extended in 2015 for 10 years, and after a brief lapse, AGOA was renewed in February 2026[1] for 11 months through the end of the year.
This short-termism hurts American workers and families relying on trade with Africa, hurts African workers, is a blow to our relationship with a continent growing in importance, and is a gift to China, which is making the continent a priority.
The world doesn’t wait for Washington
The common criticism is that America has enough people struggling at home, so why care about Africa. At American Leadership Initiative, we take that concern seriously — and we reject this false choice. This short-termism on AGOA doesn’t just hurt African workers. It hits middle class jobs, Americans who rely on lower costs for everyday goods, and secure supply chains for the cars, batteries, and electronics they buy. It weakens our relationship with a continent of growing importance and hands a strategic gift to China, which is treating Africa as a priority while Washington treats it as an afterthought.
Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow 4.4% in 2026 — nearly 50% faster than the global average.[2] Eleven of the world’s fifteen fastest-growing economies this year are African. Ethiopia is running at roughly 9%. Rwanda, Uganda, Guinea, and Benin are all posting growth rates north of 7%.[3] Africa’s combined GDP is expected to reach around $3.3–3.6 trillion in 2026,[4] and the continent is home to 1.2 billion people, with the fastest-growing working-age population of any region on earth — a projected net increase of roughly 740 million people by 2050.[5] It is the next great consumer marketplace and industrial frontier.
China now offers zero-tariff access to over 50 African countries.[6] More importantly, China has spent two decades building the infrastructure — railways, roads, ports, power plants — that actually get African minerals to market, mostly funneled toward Chinese refineries and factories. China now handles the overwhelming majority of global processing for rare earths and controls a majority share of processing for cobalt and lithium as well.[7] Chinese firms hold stakes in a large majority of cobalt operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which sits on the bulk of the world’s known cobalt reserves. Chinese capital has flowed into lithium projects in Zimbabwe, Mali, and Namibia, and Chinese policy banks issued nearly $25 billion in mining-linked loans in just the first half of 2025 alone.[8]
Africa holds an estimated 30% of the world’s remaining critical mineral reserves[9] — the cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, and rare earths that determine who builds the batteries, magnets, and semiconductors of the next fifty years. The U.S. government itself has acknowledged the stakes, launching a $10 billion strategic mineral stockpile this year and explicitly tying AGOA’s future to “access to critical minerals” in order to diversify away from Chinese-controlled supply chains. Washington has even brokered mineral-corridor diplomacy in the DRC, Rwanda, and Zambia. In other words, the administration understands the prize. It just refused to make the down payment that would actually secure it.
What a one-year clock means for American Jobs
U.S. automakers, electronics manufacturers, defense contractors, and clean-energy companies all depend on a critical minerals supply chain that currently runs disproportionately through Chinese refineries — even when raw ore comes out of African ground. The U.S. imports the large majority of its cobalt, more than half its lithium, and a substantial share of its copper.[10] Every one of those minerals is essential to batteries, semiconductors, and defense systems built by American workers in American factories.
Diversifying that supply chain away from Chinese chokepoints is not a favor to Africa — it’s a hedge against the kind of export restriction China has already demonstrated it is willing to use, having curbed shipments of gallium, germanium, antimony, and a slate of rare earths to the U.S. within the past two years. Building alternative, durable trade ties with African mineral producers is directly linked to whether an American factory can keep its production line running the next time geopolitics gets tense. A one-year trade program is a strange way to build a hedge that’s supposed to last decades.
There’s also a simpler jobs argument: U.S.-Africa trade is already worth more than $100 billion a year. AGOA underpins a meaningful share of it. Every dollar of that trade supports logistics, shipping, retail, and manufacturing jobs in the U.S. — jobs that benefit from predictable trade rules.
A textile manufacturer in Lesotho or Madagascar deciding whether to build a new production line, hire another shift, or sign a multi-year supply contract with a U.S. retailer needs to know the tariff advantage will still exist when the loan comes due — not just through next December.
Lesotho has roughly 30,000 jobs riding on denim exports that would otherwise face a 50% tariff outside AGOA. Madagascar has around 60,000 jobs in a similar position on textiles facing tariffs near 47%. These aren’t abstractions — they’re payrolls that depend on investors trusting the U.S. market will stay open long enough to justify the capital expenditure. A twelve-month extension does not buy that trust. It buys exactly what South Africa’s trade minister called it: a framework that “perpetuates uncertainty and discourages sustained investment.”
Once African manufacturers decide the U.S. market is not stable, they don’t sit still — they redirect capital toward partners who offer longer, safer time horizons. China’s zero-tariff deals combined with Belt + Road Initiative infrastructure loans run on multi-decade timelines. If the U.S. offers twelve months at a time while Beijing offers structural, generational commitment, it is not hard to predict which supplier relationship an African government or manufacturer chooses to build around.
The self-inflicted wound
The administration’s own critical-minerals strategy depends on exactly the kind of durable African partnerships that a one-year law simply cannot deliver. So why the short timeline? The administration has said it wants to use the coming year to modernize AGOA. While this is a worthy goal, using renewal as leverage only works if the other side believes you’ll eventually sign the longer deal.
Every year Washington treats AGOA as a hostage rather than a handshake, African governments and the companies operating there update their priorities a little closer to China. The infrastructure projects being built right now are long-term decisions that are very hard to reverse once made.
Congress should push now for a long-term extension of AGOA, similar to the legislation introduced by Senators Chris Coons (D-Del) and James Risch (R-ID) in 2024, which updated the agreement and included a 16-year extension of the program.
A 16-year renewal of the agreement would create a durable basis to grow the U.S. relationship with Africa, growing U.S. jobs, growing a market for U.S. exports and making sure that we don’t cede the continent to China.
[1] Trump signs one-year AGOA extension with retroactive trade benefits, GBC Ghana Online, Feb. 2026
[2] GDP growth (annual %25) – Africa, World Bank Data
[3] file:///Africa’s Fastest-Growing Economies in 2026/ 11 of the World’s Top 15 Are African, Statistics of the World, May 2026
[4] Top 10 Largest African Economies by GDP in 2026, Dabafinance, Jan. 2026
[5] Africa Overview, World Bank Group
[6] file:///China’s Role in Africa’s Critical Minerals Landscape/ Challenges and Key Opportunities, Afripoli, April 2026
[7] China’s Critical Minerals Strategy in Africa, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, March 2026
[8] China’s Role in Africa’s Critical Minerals Landscape, Afripoli, April 2026
[9] The race is on for Africa’s critical minerals, Mining Technology, Dec. 2025
[10] The race is on for Africa’s critical minerals, Mining Technology, Dec. 2025