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🌍 AGOA uncertainty grows, Prada-Versace deal progresses

🌍 AGOA uncertainty grows, Prada-Versace deal progresses

Your African fashion news & careers update for 6 March 2025

Modupe Oloruntoba
March 06, 2025 • Reading this will take: 7 minutes

Hi Operator,

Well, Trump’s tariff policies have landed, and along with deep and swift cuts to USAID, their impact is being felt across Africa.

The centre of the conversation for fashion is AGOA — the African Growth Opportunity Act. It’s a set of special terms and conditions for US imports that allows some African countries to sell B2B goods & services to the US more competitively, if they opt in and meet qualifying criteria. One of the ways it does that is by allowing products covered by the act to be imported to the US tariff-free.

Countries like Ethiopia and Kenya have built successful development projects in fashion’s supply chain on the back of AGOA, mostly selling textiles & clothing manufacturing services. Unless its renewed — which it has been for 25 years — AGOA will expire this September, and in the current climate, the jobs it helped create may now be in trouble.

The US is currently reviewing all its trade deals, and the results (set to be shared in April) should shed some light on AGOA’s future. It has typically received general support in congress, so some think there isn’t much to worry about, but the USA’s new approach to trade has others projecting different results this time around. Without AGOA, beneficiaries will have to find new markets for their goods, pivot their businesses or risk losing the jobs, income and development gains altogether.

With thanks,
Modupe Oloruntoba

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Careers

Africa Leather Design Competition 2025 Launched

Africa Talent Leather Design Showcase returns for the third year in Africa and the fifth year globally, offering designers a platform to participate in shaping the future of sustainable fashion.

Role	Company	City
Director of Finance	The OR Foundation	Accra
E-commerce sales executive	Recruiter	Lagos
Business analysis intern	TFG/Foschini Group	Cape Town
Visual Coordinator	MRP/Mr Price Group	Durban
Buyer’s assistant	Cape Union Mart Group	Cape Town
Footwear design specialist	Ackermans	Cape Town
Junior Regional Marketing Coordinator	Crocs	Cape Town

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