From Africa Is a Country
The global economic balance of power is shifting, and Africa finds itself at a crossroads. The traditional dominance of the US in shaping trade and aid policies is receding, creating both peril and possibility for African nations. Recent disruptions—from protectionist tariffs launched in Washington to the outsized influence of tech billionaires—have exposed how vulnerable Africa’s economies remain to external decisions. The once-stable antagonistic cooperation between Washington and Beijing, which long shaped the contours of the global order, now appears to be waning. Yet these shocks are also spurring a long-overdue conversation about self-reliance and sovereignty. Can Africa turn a decline in US influence into an opportunity to chart its own course, or will new dependencies simply replace the old ones?
US President Donald Trump’s trade wars epitomize the jolts to the system. His administration’s sweeping tariffs did not stop at China—they struck African countries as well, abruptly undercutting the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which for two decades had given African exporters preferential access to US markets. The effects were immediate and painful. In Lesotho, for instance, a flourishing garment industry that depended on tariff-free exports to American retailers suddenly faced levies of up to 50% on its goods. Thousands of factory workers—mostly women—saw their jobs put at risk overnight as orders evaporated and profit margins vanished. In Kenya, flower farmers braced for a 10% tariff hike on horticultural exports, threatening to price them out of the market. These were not mere economic policy shifts—they struck at the livelihoods of households and communities that had pinned their hopes on global trade.
Trump’s tariffs on African countries reached as high as 50% on goods from Lesotho, with steep duties also hitting Madagascar, Mauritius, and others. Industries painstakingly built under AGOA’s duty-free framework were thrown into crisis.
For African policymakers, the tariff shock was a rude awakening. It exposed how fragile the continent’s place in global trade truly is when a single policy reversal in Washington can upend entire sectors. “Can we continue to rely on the US, or is it time to find a path of our own?” became the question animating high-level discussions across the continent. The call for diversification grew louder. For decades, Africa’s development strategy had been anchored to ties with the US and Europe—ties that now revealed themselves to be tenuous, even illusory. Trump’s protectionism, though damaging in the immediate term, has forced a reckoning: Africa must reduce its overreliance on any single foreign market. If the status quo can no longer be taken for granted, then perhaps this moment of crisis might also serve as a catalyst to imagine a more independent economic future.
Mebratu Kelecha is an independent researcher.
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