Agoa’s recent renewal shows how quickly African governments mobilise when external market access is at stake. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) delay reveals where that urgency falters and why.

The renewal of Agoa extended in the first week of February 2026 for a single year, triggered swift and coordinated responses across African capitals.

Governments reassured exporters, dispatched diplomats to Washington and moved quickly to manage the risks of disruption. This reaction is politically revealing. It shows that African states can mobilise urgency, coordination and executive attention when access to external markets is at stake.

That urgency does not extend to AfCFTA. The continental body does not stall because of technical incapacity or lack of institutional knowledge. It stalls because it would change how economic decisions are made and enforced inside states. Integration would narrow governments’ ability to rely on exemptions, selective enforcement and ad-hoc protection.

This is why AfCFTA is politically difficult. It would constrain how power is exercised in domestic economies, not simply expand trade.

Regional rules would begin to limit unilateral reversals, reduce space for favoured firms and expose internal economic decisions to regional scrutiny.

Why urgency stops at AfCFTAThe contrast between Agoa and AfCFTA is less about trade regimes than about the kinds of pressure African governments respond to. Agoa’s renewal, though temporary, concentrates risk in visible and immediate ways: factory closures, export losses and diplomatic fallout. AfCFTA distributes pressure inward. Its enforcement would reorder domestic markets, constrain discretionary exemptions, and expose politically connected firms to regional competition.

These are not administrative inconveniences; they are redistributive choices. This is why explanations centred on “capacity gaps” ring hollow. African states routinely administer complex systems of customs unions, tax regimes, and security coordination when political incentives align.

The trade data reflects this political reality. Intra-African trade grew by about 12.4 percent in 2024, reaching roughly $220 billion, even amid global headwinds. Yet it still accounts for only 15–18 percent of Africa’s total trade, which stands at around $1.5 trillion.

Infrastructure deficits, logistics costs, and uneven industrial capacity all matter, but they do not explain the persistence of this gap. What they require is political enforcement.

Regional trade advances only when governments discipline borders, harmonise standards and absorb the internal adjustment costs that integration imposes. External preference regimes do not demand this; they operate around it.

AfCFTA’s unrealised potential sharpens the point further. Credible estimates suggest that full implementation could increase intra-African trade by 40–45 percent.

That scale of gain explains both the promise of integration and the resistance to it. AfCFTA would shift advantage away from firms and sectors that benefit from fragmented markets and discretionary governance.

Africa already knows how to integrateAfCFTA is delayed not because Africa lacks the capacity to integrate, but because integration would change how economic power is exercised inside states. It would reduce governments’ reliance on exemptions, selective enforcement, and ad-hoc protection to manage political loyalty and economic advantage.

This resistance is difficult to attribute to incapacity. In the East African Community, states already operate under a legally binding Common External Tariff, apply shared rules of origin and have harmonised customs procedures, with disputes subject to regional adjudication.

This represents a sustained surrender of fiscal autonomy that governments continue to accept.

Agoa does not ask for this. It allows governments to preserve existing arrangements at home while negotiating access abroad.

The real question, then, is not whether Africa can trade with itself. It is whether African governments are prepared to govern under rules that limit exemptions, expose protection, and bind economic policy beyond national control. Until that question is answered honestly, AfCFTA will remain a vision widely endorsed and deliberately postponed.

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