China’s zero-tariff ‘gift’ to Africa could be a Trojan horse in disguise

China’s zero-tariffs policy, which is to last for two years, came into effect on 1 May 2026.

China’s zero rate could offer African countries the opportunity to industrialise on the back of access to China’s market, its technology and its low-cost long-term financing, in a similar way to how China fuelled its rapid industrialisation by producing goods for Western countries.

Africa’s development failure has been that in the post-colonial period African countries did not industrialise on the back of their trade with their more industrialised trade partners or former colonial powers, as China industrialised on the back of trading with industrial countries.

African countries continued to export raw materials to their partners and former colonial powers, but without processing these it meant that the countries did not industrialise, and in many cases even de-industrialised further.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development’s Economic Development in Africa Report 2024 data showed that primary goods accounted for 76.8% of Africa’s commercial exports in 2024.

African countries hoping they can export raw materials such as agricultural products and minerals to China in the long term will make a strategic blunder. China has adopted a new ambitious 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) whereby it aims to decouple the country from agricultural imports and become a self-sufficient agriculture producer.

China stockpiling critical minerals

China is also increasingly stockpiling critical minerals, or through technology producing alternatives to key minerals produced by Africa, for example laboratory-manufactured diamonds. This means that African countries should view China’s zero-tariff policies as short term, and therefore African countries must aggressively diversify their trading partners beyond China.

African countries will only benefit from China’s zero tariffs if they specifically leverage China to build manufacturing in African countries, transfer technology and skills, add value to raw materials and secure Chinese financing for industry-relevant infrastructure. African countries will have to come up with practical industrial policies to do so, not outdated ideological visions.

Before China’s new zero-tariff policy for African countries, Africa’s main exports to China such as tea, coffee and seafood faced tariffs in China.

Bilateral trade between China and Africa at the end of 2025 was $348-billion. Africa exported $123.02-billion to China of mostly raw materials such as crude oil, copper, cobalt and iron ore.

China exported $225.03-billion to Africa of higher-value manufactured goods, including machinery, electronics and green technologies. China’s trade deficit with Africa reached a record high of $102.01-billion in favour of China in 2025.

Africa’s manufactured and processed goods – which deliver higher income and more employment, are faced with higher tariffs in China, as they are in industrial countries.

China is likely to expect that African countries signing up to its zero-tariff policy will have to support China at international fora and side with it in its disputes with others.

In 2024, China offered a tariff-free policy to Least Developed Countries that supported its “One China Policy”. Up to 33 African countries qualified for this.

Race for global power hegemony

In the race for global power hegemony between China and the US, China needs food security, mineral and energy security. China, in the race with the US, is at pace diversifying its agriculture imports from the US, and diversifying its sourcing of critical minerals – essential for economic transformation in contemporary technology-based economies.

Africa is critical in the global supply value chains of critical minerals. China needs Africa’s critical minerals, whether lithium, copper or cobalt, to continue to power the growth of its economy, vast industries, new technology and military machinery.

China’s new zero tariffs to African political allies gives China access to Africa’s critical mineral supplies to counter US, European and Japanese competition for them.

China’s offering of the zero-tariff policies to Africa may lock African countries firmly into China’s sphere of control in the Chinese dragon’s battle for hegemony with the US.

The US has cut development aid to most of Africa, increased import tariffs for many African countries and restricted the movement of Africans to the US, which has plunged many African countries into economic distress, with countries such as Lesotho and Botswana declaring economic emergencies.

Zero tariffs are never “zero”. There are non-trade barriers. African products will face non-tariff barriers – measures other than customs duties that restrict agricultural trade. Non-tariff barriers include phytosanitary barriers and costs, food safety rules, product-specific regulations, import quotas, licensing requirements and customs processes.

Many African countries do not have the capacity to meet China’s product requirements for certification for food safety and phytosanitary standards, packaging and even for the volume the Chinese market often needs.

Logistical inefficiencies

Logistical inefficiencies caused by poor infrastructure in Africa are a non-tariff trade barrier on their own. Goods in many African countries have to be transported through broken infrastructure, border inefficiencies, violent instability and corrupt public officials. This adds additional costs, extra time and risks damaging goods. Products from countries such as Mali, Zimbabwe and Niger that are landlocked have to go through other countries, increasing the costs of their products.

For many African countries, there are not many direct shipping links to China. Often the bulk shipping of goods from African countries to China goes through Dubai or Singapore. Long distances add to the costs of African exports to China.

The central challenge for African countries is how to add value to local commodities, how to secure long-term finance for infrastructure, industrialisation and development at fair terms, how to acquire new technology and new skills, and how to have accountable political leaders and governments who will use public money in the best interests of their countries. Beneficiating, processing and adding value to African products, which earns higher prices for them, increases revenue and widens the industrial bases of African countries, is the only sustainable way to increase economic growth, create employment and reduce poverty.

Since 2013, China through its Belt and Road Initiative has offered loans to African countries which supported it’s One China Policy, to finance trade-related infrastructure such as airports, ports, feeder roads and rail that link to Chinese mining.

Among the benefits of China’s trade with Africa has been that China has offered African countries what Nigerian entrepreneur Aliko Dangote said was long-term financing, at accessible terms, for large infrastructure, development and industrial projects that Western countries are not funding. Dangote said in an interview on Nicolai Tangen’s “In Good Company” podcast: “If I go to Italy, for example, and they are asking me to write a check for a power plant of $500-million and the Chinese are saying just give me 20%, the rest I will finance for five years, which one are you going to take? Obviously, you take the Chinese one.”

However, it cannot be overemphasised that unless African countries turn the loans they have received from China into new exports, new manufacturing, value-added production, new technology learning, industrial-enhancing infrastructure and new competitive businesses, these loans will be costly to repay without any productive gains.

Post-colonial loans to African countries

The loans African countries received in the immediate post-colonial period from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund did not go into productive capacity and industry-enhancing infrastructure to foster value-added processing and expanded manufacturing capacity; but went into consumption, welfare and non-productive assets. African countries had nothing to show for such loans but heavy indebtedness.

Anthony Ohemeng-Boamah, the Assistant Director-General at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, argues: “A tariff is simply a tax on imports. Remove it and you lower the price paid by buyers on the other side – making the exporter more competitive overnight. That is why duty-free access can move markets: it shifts the price signal, nudges demand upward, and gives African goods a fighting chance against rival suppliers. The ‘price effect’ is real. The question is whether Africa can convert that effect into lasting transformation – or merely into a bigger pipeline of the same old exports.”

Ohemeng-Boamah says Africa can either use China’s zero tariffs “to upgrade standards, build processing capacity and diversify into higher-value exports”, or “it can sprint toward short-term volumes and lock itself more tightly into low-value trade with a single external market”.

In selected instances, China has in recent years has supported industrial capacity building in Africa.

China is also building the Zambia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone which aims to develope a full copper industry chain, from copper mining to smelting and processing, to increase the added value of copper mined in Zambia.

The Zimbabwean government recently announced that China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt plans to establish a lithium carbonate processing plant in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe accounted for roughly 10% of global mined lithium output last year, but most of these exports were in its raw form, depriving the country of higher income.

There is a danger is that African countries put all their eggs in China’s zero tariffs and continue to neglect building the African free trade area. A functioning African free trade area could help African countries scale currently uneven and relatively small production of goods, built production clusters and regional value chains, and thus create a robust manufacturing base. Many individual African countries do not produce enough to compete in the Chinese or other large markets.

Danger of fragmented benefits

“If every African country tries to export to China on its own, the benefits of zero tariffs may remain fragmented. But if AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) is used to build regional production systems, pool supply, harmonise standards and connect producers with processors and logistics hubs, China’s market could become an external demand engine for African value chains,” writes the African Business magazine.

“For example, one country may produce agricultural inputs, another may have processing capacity, a third may provide port access, and a fourth may offer trade finance or certification services. AfCFTA can help connect these advantages. China’s zero-tariff offer can then support a continental production strategy rather than a set of disconnected bilateral export opportunities,” writes African Business.

Ohemeng-Boamah says: “(A) surge of attention toward China’s demand can crowd out the harder work of building intra-African suppliers, logistics corridors, and standards regimes that make regional trade routine. This is why the ‘gift’ can become a Trojan horse. It feels like progress because exports rise. But if it pulls talent, finance, and policy attention away from regional integration, it may prolong Africa’s fragmentation – and keep the continent competing as commodity tributaries, instead of collaborating as value-chain partners.” DM

William Gumede is an Associate Professor, School of Governance, at the University of the Witwatersrand, and author of South Africa in BRICS (Tafelberg).

This is an edited extract from his address to Hortgro Technical Symposium in Somerset West. Hortgro is the organisation that represents the South African deciduous (pome and stone) fruit industry.