President John Mahama has cautioned that trade wars and unilateral tariff impositions pose a significant threat to global commerce, stressing that “nobody wins tariff wars.”
He made the remark during a Presidential Media Encounter at the Jubilee House on Wednesday, where he engaged journalists on the state of the economy and Ghana’s place in the international trading system.
According to him, the imposition of new tariffs by the United States undermines decades of effort to build a rules-based global trade order. He lamented that Africa, which previously enjoyed zero tariff access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), is now burdened with a 15% tariff.
“Government is watching developments carefully, but the reality is that no tariff makes meaningful sense if we are unable to take advantage of them by exporting. It is unfortunate that America has appended the world trade system, which took years of negotiations from Rio to Doha to establish,” Mahama noted.
He argued that the U.S. tariff hikes, introduced under former President Donald Trump, effectively cripple AGOA, which was due for renegotiation this September. “AGOA is technically dead with this 15% tariff. There’s no way it can be renewed under these conditions,” he said.
President Mahama urged Ghana and other African economies to see this as an opportunity to diversify export markets beyond the United States and China, warning that overreliance on one market leaves the continent vulnerable to external shocks.
He further highlighted that the legality of U.S. tariff impositions is currently under review at the U.S. Supreme Court, which could determine whether Congress must endorse such measures.
“Ultimately, it’s about protecting our own economic interests,” Mahama stressed, adding that Ghana must be proactive in seeking alternative trading partners while strengthening intra-African commerce.