For months, uncertainty hung over African exporters like a low cloud. Orders stalled.
Investment decisions were delayed. Trade officials quietly worried about what would happen if one of the continent’s most important trade bridges to the United States collapsed altogether. On February 3, that cloud lifted partially.
The United States has reauthorised the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) through December 31, 2026, restoring duty-free access to the U.S. market for dozens of African countries, including Uganda.
The announcement, confirmed in a press release by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), follows President Donald Trump’s signing of legislation extending the programme retroactively from September 30, 2025, when it expired.
For Ugandan trade advocates, the decision is both a relief and a warning. AGOA’s return restores short-term certainty for exporters of textiles, agricultural products, and manufactured goods.
But Washington has made it clear: the programme is coming back changed, and on stricter terms.
CERTAINTY RESTORED, CONDITIONS TIGHTENED
AGOA grants eligible sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to the U.S. market for more than 1,800 products, in addition to over 5,000 products covered under the Generalized System of Preferences.
Eligibility is tied to economic reforms, respect for the rule of law, removal of trade barriers, and adherence to human rights standards. But the tone from Washington has shifted.
“AGOA for the 21st century must demand more from our trading partners and yield more market access for U.S. businesses, farmers, and ranchers,” said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
“We must also make sure the program enhances U.S.–Africa trade and will work with Congress over the next year to modernize the program to align with President Trump’s America First Trade Policy.”
In plain terms, AGOA is no longer being framed as a one-way development tool. It is being repositioned as a reciprocal trade instrument, one that must clearly serve U.S. commercial interests as well. That shift matters for Uganda.
UGANDA’S LONG ROAD BACK
The reauthorisation comes after intense diplomatic engagement in Washington, much of it driven by African governments and trade advocates worried about losing access to the U.S. market altogether.
In December 2025, Odrek Rwabwogo, Chair of Uganda’s Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports and Industrial Development (PACEID), described those efforts as urgent and bipartisan.
“On the 11th – 12th December in Washington, DC, we held important meetings with officers from Senator Chris Coons’ office on the resumption of AGOA,” Rwabwogo wrote on X. “African ambassadors, civil society partners, and the Bennet Group team joined hands us in this crucial engagement.”
He later noted that the House Committee on Ways and Means approved a bill to renew AGOA in a 37–3 bipartisan vote, calling it “a major step forward.”
AGOA, which ended in September 2025 after more than 20 years, enabled over USD 103 billion in non-oil exports from Africa to the United States. Rwabwogo described it as
“America’s most significant preferential trade programme with the continent.”
But Uganda’s relationship with AGOA has been far from smooth. The country was suspended from the programme in January 2024, following the passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law forcing officials and exporters into damage-control mode.
“When Uganda was suspended in January 2024, we fought hard to keep our case alive and to keep engagement strong,” Rwabwogo said, pointing to new market openings in U.S. cities such as Detroit, Chicago, and Atlanta.
Inside government, the relief over AGOA’s extension is tempered by realism.
“The reauthorization of AGOA by the United States is definitely good news,” said Cleopas Ndorere, Commissioner for External Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives.
“The USA remains an important trading partner to Uganda, and we look forward to seeing our traders accessing this lucrative market.” But Ndorere was blunt about the risks. “As a unilateral preference scheme, AGOA remains inherently volatile and subject to policy fluctuations beyond our control,” he said.
That volatility is now shaping Uganda’s trade strategy. Ndorere said the ministry is accelerating efforts to diversify both markets and products, placing greater emphasis on negotiated frameworks such as the East African Community (EAC), COMESA, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), alongside new bilateral partnerships.
In other words, AGOA is welcome-but it can no longer be relied upon. Washington’s language suggests that the next phase of AGOA will come with tougher eligibility tests and clearer expectations of reciprocity.
For African governments, including Uganda’s, this turns trade policy into a political balancing act-between maintaining access to the U.S. market and navigating domestic governance, labour, and human-rights pressures. For exporters, the extension buys time. For policymakers, it sharpens urgency.
AGOA’s return is not a reset to the past. It is a reminder that preferential access is conditional, temporary, and increasingly transactional. Uganda may once again trade under AGOA. But the era of taking it for granted is over.
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