For decades, Africa was treated as the international system’s wild card. A supporting player, useful for humanitarian aid figures, a testing ground for military missions, and a platform for Western discourse on sustainable development. But that has changed. Today, the African continent is at the heart of a new global economic architecture. African governments aren’t saying this. The powers that previously ignored it are shouting it out.
The United States has just excluded several African countries from the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) program, an initiative that since 2000 offered preferential access to the US market for textiles, fruits, minerals, and other products. The official reason: “lack of democratic governance.” Uganda, Niger, Gabon, and the Central African Republic are just the first names on a list that Washington promises to expand.
The measure was understood throughout Africa for what it is: political retaliation. Not for human rights violations, which are also rife in US allies. But rather due to diplomatic misalignment on key issues: relations with Russia, abstention from UN votes, and the military presence of non-Western powers.
Faced with this slam, China acted in its usual style: without accusations, without conditions, without cameras. On June 13, in the city of Changsha, the Chinese vice minister of commerce announced the elimination of 100% of tariffs on exports from the 53 African countries that recognize the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government. This is not an abstract promise. It is a decree that goes into effect this year.
Africa loses access to the United States and gains it in China. But it’s not just about trade. It’s about symbols, narrative, and influence.
From the moral baton to the economic fan: two models of expansion in head-on collision
The US logic toward Africa remains essentially punitive. The White House grants benefits but conditions them on internal changes: free elections, the fight against corruption, and the opening of markets. If the country doesn’t comply, it is punished. That logic was built on an inverted colonial idea: that the West must civilize Africa to integrate it.
China proposes the opposite. Its relationship with Africa isn’t about sermons, but about infrastructure, financing, and markets. Eliminating tariffs isn’t an accounting decision. It’s a political statement: the Chinese market is opening up to Africa without imposing a governance model.
In addition to zero tariffs, China announced a 360 billion yuan credit line for African investments, as well as technical assistance programs, promotion of African products on Chinese digital platforms, and agreements for the establishment of export processing zones in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Angola.
China isn’t demanding reforms. It demands products. And the message to Africa is clear: “What the West doesn’t buy, we will.” That phrase has been heard explicitly at recent China-Africa trade fairs. It’s not a metaphor. It’s a power strategy.
Behind these moves is FOCAC, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, founded in 2000 and serving as Beijing’s most ambitious platform for expanding outside of Asia without firing a single shot. Unlike the IMF, which imposes adjustment programs, or USAID, which acts with an assistance approach, FOCAC promises equal treatment. At least in rhetoric.
Who wins with Chinese access? And who loses?
From a technical standpoint, the elimination of tariffs can especially benefit middle-income economies such as South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, and Kenya, which boast competitive agro-industrial products and textile manufactures. In these countries, exporting to China without barriers can mean a jump in their trade balances.
But the challenge isn’t access. It’s capacity. Most African countries export raw materials, non-value-added agricultural products, or unrefined minerals. China welcomes them, but also imposes sanitary, technical, and logistical standards that only a few countries are able to meet.
The risk is clear: Africa becomes a cheap supplier of resources to Chinese industry, without transforming its production model. If that happens, the immediate benefit transforms into a more sophisticated dependence.
According to figures from China’s own Ministry of Commerce, Africa’s trade deficit with Beijing exceeded $60 billion in 2024. A figure that could increase if African countries fail to diversify their supply. Exporting more does not necessarily mean earning more.
Africa in its mirror: victim of two empires or architect of its destiny?
Given this scenario, the central question is not whether China is a better partner than the United States. The real question is whether Africa can escape the logic of structural dependency that has defined it for the past 150 years.
For the first time in decades, African countries have room for maneuver. If the United States punishes them, China embraces them. If Europe reduces aid, Russia appears with subsidized wheat. If the IMF imposes targets, the BRICS proposes alternatives.
Geopolitics is giving them a historic window of opportunity. But the question is whether they will know how to use it. For zero tariffs to be a lever for development and not a trap for raw material exports, a productive revolution is needed: industrial parks, agri-food technology, transportation infrastructure, job training.
None of this is built with speeches or diplomatic applause. It is built with public policies, fiscal coherence, regional alliances, and vision.
What is at stake is not just the Africa-China relationship. It is the African development model of the 21st century.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. Who will write the ending to this rhyme?
In the mid-20th century, Africa was the territory disputed by the Soviet Union and the United States on the Cold War stage. Half a century later, it is once again at the center of the battle. But this time it is not about ideology, but about economics.
While the United States preaches democracy from afar, China opens its ports and promises investment. One preaches. The other seduces.
Africa faces a historical fork in the road. It can repeat the pattern of dependence with a new master and new ways. Or it can use global rivalry as a lever to build an autonomous, diverse, and genuinely African path.
The continent does not need to choose between China and the United States. It needs to choose between the past that conditions it and the future it can write.
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