US trade deal disaster for critical South African industry

South African poultry producers have asked for a seat at the table to discuss their role in the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), only to find that there is no table to begin with.

With South Africa’s inclusion in AGOA on thin ice and the threat of tariffs looming, local poultry producers are left uncertain whether the United States’ vast chicken imports will continue to impact the industry or if this concession will fall away.

This is according to Rainbow Chicken CEO Marthinus Stander, who recently told Daily Investor that while other local industries have seen significant benefits stemming from AGOA, the poultry industry is not one of them.

The United States first introduced AGOA in 2000 as a preferential trade agreement between America and various African countries, including South Africa.

The agreement allows these countries to export certain goods to the United States duty-free. For South Africa, this has greatly benefited the local automotive, agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

However, South Africa’s continued inclusion in the agreement has not come without a price. 

Stander said that in 2015, during negotiations to maintain South Africa’s AGOA status, the United States demanded a quota on chicken exports to South Africa. 

South Africa agreed to a 65,000-tonne annual quota for United States bone-in chicken imports, which constituted roughly 15% of total local chicken imports at the time.

Stander explained that, at the time, local poultry producers agreed to this, even though it offered them no benefits, as it would allow other industries to take advantage of duty-free access to the US market.

He said this quota and the agreed-upon annual growth factor have remained in place ever since, with the United States now exporting over 70,000 tonnes of chicken to South Africa per year, all of which is exempt from anti-dumping tariffs.

“That’s the volume we’ve been living with since 2015, but we did that to enable the government to have benefits for other industries like food, wines, and motor cars, with no benefit to us,” he said.

However, he said these benefits are now in jeopardy in light of US President Donald Trump’s threats to exclude South Africa from AGOA in future and implement import tariffs that could, in effect, cancel out many of the benefits stemming from the agreement.

“It was also very well understood that that quota will fall away the moment those benefits don’t accrue to us, and they don’t because of what Trump did,” Stander said. 

“And we should have a seat at the table to discuss this, but I’ve been informed that there is no table.”

Uncertainty looms

Stander explained that the true threat to the local poultry industry is not necessarily Trump’s tariffs or South Africa’s removal from AGOA.

Rather, he said, it is the uncertainty that comes from the United States’ constantly changing trade policies.

“It’s just the uncertainty factor – he can say tomorrow, he has a wonderful trade deal for other industries. Then, by the way, we want to triple the chicken access into South Africa and dump more chicken. You don’t know, so it’s an uncertainty factor,” he said. 

Concerningly, the time to clear up this uncertainty is running out quickly, with less than a year left to clarify what South Africa’s continued inclusion in AGOA will look like – or even whether it will be included at all.

Earlier in 2026, the United States Congress extended AGOA by another year, which surprised some, given speculation that the agreement would fall away completely.

While welcomed by several industry players and the South African government, the country now has only one year to negotiate a better trade deal with the United States, or risk facing the same uncertainty at the end of 2026.

In that same time, experts have urged South Africa to diversify its trade with other nations to reduce its reliance on AGOA and the United States.

BDO South Africa partner Siya Mthembu explained that a one-year extension is a very short period, with South Africa having a tight window in which it can show it has learnt the lessons of the past.

“One key lesson South Africa should have learned from the tariffs imposed by the US is the importance of market diversification,” Mthembu said. 

“At present, South Africa appears overly reliant on its traditional trading partners, with limited progress in securing new trade agreements.”