The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expired at midnight on September 30, ending 25 years of preferential access to American consumers and triggering a fresh wave of commentary urging Ghana to pivot decisively toward China, the Middle East, or other emerging markets. But one of the country’s leading exporters is pushing back against what he calls dangerously simplistic thinking.
Nicholas Apokerah, Chief Executive of TradeAid Africa, argues that walking away from the US market isn’t realistic—and might not even be strategic. In an interview monitored by The High Street Journal, he warned that Ghana’s economic circumstances don’t allow for theatrical gestures that ignore commercial reality.
“It’s not so simplistic like that. I mean, even China, the big economies, they’re all looking at the US market, because the consumption there is great,” Apokerah said. “So it’s not as simple as to say, just forget about them and all that.”
His point cuts through the political rhetoric. The United States remains the world’s largest consumer market, absorbing imports that even manufacturing giants like China desperately need to offload. For Ghana, which exported $1.2 billion in goods to the US in 2024, the question isn’t whether American demand matters—it’s whether Ghana can afford to sideline it while competitors fight for every percentage point of market share.
AGOA’s expiration affects 32 African countries, with 22 previously qualifying for apparel provisions that created hundreds of thousands of jobs across the continent. Ghana’s exports under the program included cocoa products, handicrafts, and specialty goods that found ready buyers among American consumers familiar with English-language marketing and comfortable with established trade relationships.
That familiarity matters more than policy analysts sometimes acknowledge, Apokerah suggested. “We are more comfortable in that market because we speak English, and it’s very easy to communicate in the US as compared to a place like China or even the Middle East,” he explained. Language and cultural alignment reduce transaction costs, speed up problem-solving, and make market entry less intimidating for smaller Ghanaian exporters who lack the resources to navigate complex new regulatory environments.
The tariff reality now facing Ghana isn’t trivial. Trump’s administration has imposed a 15% duty on Ghanaian exports, eliminating the competitive advantage that AGOA provided. But Apokerah’s calculation focuses on opportunity cost: What does Ghana gain by abandoning relationships and infrastructure built over two decades, especially when alternative markets present their own barriers?
“For us as a developing country, I don’t think one market can actually deal with our needs. So we have to look everywhere to see where we can get the most of it,” he said. It’s a pragmatic acknowledgment that Ghana’s export base isn’t large enough or diversified enough to be choosy about destinations. AGOA supported more than 1 million African jobs and nearly 500,000 US jobs at its peak, creating interdependencies that don’t vanish overnight.
Instead of calling Washington’s bluff, Apokerah advocates a dual strategy: explore opportunities in China, the Middle East, and other markets while simultaneously engaging American trade negotiators for arrangements that work for both sides. “We want to explore those other markets, but cannot throw away the US market. We just have to engage them and see how we can come up with a win-win situation that we can all continue to trade among ourselves.”
It’s worth noting what he’s not saying. He’s not claiming the US will necessarily offer better terms, or that Trump’s protectionist instincts will soften. He’s simply arguing that Ghana’s economic position doesn’t support dramatic exits from major markets, particularly when those markets offer scale and purchasing power that few alternatives can match.
The political appeal of pivoting to China or the Middle East is obvious. It signals independence, challenges Western economic dominance, and resonates with voters frustrated by what they perceive as American indifference to African development. But Apokerah’s perspective reflects the reality facing actual exporters: they need customers who can pay, logistics networks that work, and regulatory environments they understand. Rhetoric doesn’t ship products.
Early projections suggest tariff measures introduced in 2025, combined with AGOA’s expiration, could reduce African exports by approximately 8% through 2029, with an additional $189 million decline directly attributable to losing preferential access. For Ghana’s exporters, those aren’t abstract statistics—they’re orders that won’t materialize, workers who won’t be hired, and businesses that might not survive.
Whether Ghana’s government heeds Apokerah’s advice remains unclear. Trade diplomacy often gets tangled in political positioning, particularly when nationalist sentiment runs high. But his warning poses uncomfortable questions that policy makers can’t easily dismiss: Can Ghana really afford to treat its second-largest trading partner as expendable? And if China, the Middle East, and other alternatives were obviously superior, why are the world’s biggest exporters still battling for American market share?
The answers will shape Ghana’s export sector for years. What’s certain is that exporters like Apokerah, who depend on actual sales rather than political applause, aren’t ready to burn bridges—even if the tariff environment has become significantly less welcoming.
