China has now dropped tariffs on imports from every African country except 1

China's President Xi Jinping, right, and Mozambique's President Daniel Chapo attend a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (Haruna Furuhashi/Pool Photo via AP)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A China policy giving Africa’s biggest economies tariff-free access to its market for the next two years came into effect Friday while its economic rival the United States seeks to impose new import taxes under U.S. President Donald Trump’s push for protectionism.

The China deal covers Africa’s 20 largest economies, including South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Kenya. China had already dropped tariffs on 33 poorer African countries, meaning 53 of the continent’s 54 nations are now eligible for “tariff-free treatment” for their goods, according to China.

The country not eligible is the small nation of Eswatini because it is the only one in Africa that maintains formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

China says it’ll help mutual development

The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council in China said the agreement would promote the common development of China and Africa. China’s official Xinhua News Agency said a shipment of 24 metric tons of apples from South Africa that cleared customs in Shenzhen in the early hours of Friday was the first batch of goods to enter under the new zero-tariff policy.

According to Xinhua, China’s Commerce Ministry said it would especially benefit African products like cocoa from Ivory Coast and Ghana, coffee and avocados from Kenya, and citrus fruits and wine from South Africa, which used to face tariffs of between 8 per cent and 30 per cent.

Ivory Coast is by far the world’s biggest cocoa producer and it and Ghana account for more than 50 per cent of the global supply. South Africa is a major citrus fruit exporter.

African nations looking away from the U.S.

Several of Africa’s top economies said they would look for new markets for some of their U.S.-bound products after the Trump administration imposed reciprocal tariffs a year ago — at one point with rates of 30 per cent for Africa’s leading economy, South Africa, and higher than 40 per cent for some other African countries.

“South Africa looks forward to working with China in a friendly, pragmatic and flexible manner,” South African Trade Minister Parks Tau said in February during bilateral talks in China.

While the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs as unconstitutional in February, the Republican president said his administration had “very powerful alternatives” and promptly rolled out temporary import taxes to replace them.

China is already the biggest trade partner for Africa, a continent of 1.5 billion people that’s expected to nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations, when it would have more than a quarter of the world’s people.

China dominates a large trade imbalance with Africa

China hailed its tariff-free deal as promoting common development, but there is a large trade imbalance between it and Africa, while African nations owe Beijing billions in debt repayments.

China-Africa trade reached a record US$348 billion in 2025, though China’s exports to Africa increased by around 25 per cent to $225 billion, while its imports from Africa increased by only around 5 per cent to $123 billion, widening the trade deficit for Africa.

China has long imported raw materials from Africa and sent back manufactured goods. Thierry Pairault, a China-Africa expert at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, said that while the new policy might have some benefits for agricultural products, most African raw material exports like oil and minerals already had tariff-free access to China.

“(Chinese leader) Xi Jinping is positioning China as the antithesis of Western protectionism. This gesture is intended to appeal to both African public opinion and global markets,” Pairault wrote in an assessment published by the China Global South Project, which analyzes China’s relationship with poor countries.

But the policy “only applies where it costs (China) almost nothing,” Pairault wrote.

Gerald Imray, The Associated Press