Starting this Friday, China will roll out a sweeping unilateral zero-tariff policy that covers 53 African countries — all but the landlocked southern African nation of Eswatini, which retains official diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Prior to this expansion, as of December 2024, China had already eliminated tariffs on imports from 33 least-developed African economies; the updated framework will remain in effect through April 30, 2028, with no clarification yet on terms beyond that date.
Beijing has positioned the policy as a landmark milestone, framing itself as the first major global economy to extend full unilateral duty-free treatment to nearly the entire African continent. While the move is widely recognized as a strategic step to boost China’s soft power across Africa, industry analysts and economists note that tariff barriers are rarely the primary challenge holding back African exporters, even as the region struggles with a rapidly widening trade deficit with China.
Lauren Johnston, senior research fellow at the AustChina Institute, points out that this initiative also creates a clear contrast between China’s self-styled image as an Africa-friendly advocate of trade liberalization and the trade policies pursued by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Just last August, the U.S. imposed tariffs as high as 30% on goods from several African nations; most of those duties were later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving a 10% tariff in place for most affected imports.
Johnston argues that the expanded zero-tariff regime holds tangible potential to boost African agricultural exports, which could in turn raise rural household incomes, lift agricultural productivity, and make incremental progress toward reducing hunger and poverty across the continent. However, the core structural challenge of Sino-African trade remains the growing imbalance heavily tilted in China’s favor: Chinese exports to Africa far outpace African shipments to China, and that gap is accelerating at a rapid pace. In 2025 alone, Africa’s trade deficit with China surged 65% to reach approximately $102 billion.
Currently, African exports to China are overwhelmingly dominated by unprocessed minerals and raw commodities, including crude oil and metallic ores. China’s top three trading partners on the continent are Angola, whose bilateral trade is driven almost entirely by oil exports, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major source of critical minerals, and South Africa, the region’s most industrialized economy.
Johnston cautions that uniform zero-tariff access across the economically diverse African continent will not deliver equal benefits. More developed, diversified economies such as South Africa and Morocco already have the export capacity and infrastructure to take advantage of expanded market access, while smaller, less developed nations will struggle to compete. Other experts echo this view, noting that tariff elimination alone cannot address the widespread structural barriers holding back African economic transformation.
“Many African economies still face deep structural constraints, such as limited industrial capacity, underdeveloped logistics networks, and an overreliance on raw commodity exports, which tariff reductions alone cannot fix,” explained Jervin Naidoo, a political analyst at Oxford Economics Africa.
Alfred Schipke, director of the East Asian Institute in Singapore, shares this assessment, noting that the short-term economic impact of the policy “will likely be modest and concentrated in African countries that already have established export capacity.” Still, he adds, the long-term potential could be far more significant if African governments use this opening to expand domestic production, diversify their export portfolios, and move up global value chains.
Other analysts point to shifting consumer demand in China as an underrecognized opportunity for African producers. Amit Jain, a Singapore-based expert on China-Africa relations, notes that Chinese consumer demand for high-value agricultural goods such as coffee and tree nuts has grown dramatically over the past two decades, creating new, untapped markets for African exporters.
Ken Gichinga, an economist based in East Africa, echoed that optimism, telling reporters that “these new measures will improve access to Chinese markets, help close that trade deficit and expand opportunities for African companies to prosper. For Kenya, it will be a big boost to certain subsectors such as avocado. The agriculture sector will benefit the most — macadamia nuts, coffee, tea and leather.”
Wangari Kebuchi, an Africa fiscal policy economist, welcomed the short-term benefits of the policy, including potential gains in foreign exchange earnings and a modest lift to the agriculture, mining and logistics sectors, but warned that medium and long-term fiscal growth cannot be achieved through expanded market access alone. “The structural problem has not changed. Africa continues to export raw materials and import manufactured goods. That asymmetry drives persistent trade deficits, constrains domestic revenue mobilization, and limits the jobs and tax base that governments need to fund public services,” Kebuchi explained. “Zero tariffs on commodities that have already left our shores unprocessed do not solve that problem. They can entrench it. African governments must now ask the harder questions: How do we use improved market access as leverage for industrial policy?”
Turning to the exclusion of Eswatini, analysts broadly agree that the move is a deliberate political gesture with minimal direct economic impact. In fact, Jain suggests that the exclusion may even backhandedly benefit Eswatini by prompting Taiwan to offer additional economic concessions to maintain the diplomatic relationship.
Eswatini is one of only 12 countries worldwide that still maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Beijing claims Taiwan as an inalienable part of Chinese territory, while Taiwan’s self-governing authorities widely view the island as a sovereign independent state. The issue made headlines just last month, when Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te was forced to cancel a planned trip to Eswatini after three other African nations — Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar — denied his aircraft permission to fly through their airspace. Taiwan has accused the three countries of acting under intense economic and political pressure from Beijing.
Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Centre, argues that the exclusion of Eswatini from the zero-tariff policy sends a deliberate political message. By sidelining Eswatini, China is “weaponising its ties with African countries, and showing how relations with China comes up with strings attached,” Sung said. “China wants to show the world how it treats its friends, versus Taiwan’s friends.”