While Donald Trump upended global trade in the spring by announcing tariffs of at least 10% for all countries − and significantly higher for some − his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping put forward a very different offer. On June 11, as foreign ministers from several African states were visiting Changsha, in southeast China, the Chinese president addressed a letter to leaders across the continent.

In it, he announced the removal of customs duties on products from all African countries except one, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), which continues to favor diplomatic relations with Taipei over Beijing. To those rejected by the US, China opens its arms wider.

China has already been Africa's leading trading partner for 16 years. Their trade reached $296 billion (€252 billion) in 2024, and rose by another 12% in the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period the previous year.

Xi Jinping's announcement was more than merely symbolic. The United States under Bill Clinton had made a very similar move in 2000, removing barriers to the entry of products from sub-Saharan Africa through a law, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was designed to help economically struggling countries export. Donald Trump already brought an end, on April 2, to the 0% tariff that applied to these states for the past 25 years, and there is no guarantee that AGOA, which expires on September 30, will be renewed.

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