The American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) is calling on Congress to immediately renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act and the Haiti Economic Lift Program (HELP) Act (Haiti HOPE/HELP) trade preference programs before their expiration on September 30, 2025.
For more than 23 years, AGOA has provided eligible Sub-Saharan African countries with duty free access, strengthening American exports in textiles and agriculture and fostering a wide variety of U.S.–Africa commercial partnerships.
Similarly, for over 15 years, the Haiti HOPE/HELP programs have supported both U.S. and Haitian textile industries by granting Haiti duty free access for apparel and textile products, building strong business ties between the two neighboring nations.
“These programs safeguard and support our 3.6 American workers while sustaining jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti and opening markets to U.S. cotton and textile exports,” said AAFA’s Vice President of Trade and Customs Policy, Beth Hughes. “These are bipartisan priorities. Renewing these programs is an urgent, cost-effective, and bipartisan solution. Let’s continue the decades-long tradition of overwhelming support for these programs that strengthen growing regions abroad while preserving and enhancing American competitiveness at home.”
The programs are not only good for American companies, American workers, and the U.S. economy, they ensure America remains influential in key regions of the world,” said AAFA President and CEO, Steve Lamar. “Allowing these programs to lapse means the United States is ceding power and influence to others in these key regions.”
AAFA has long urged Congress to renew, and the Administration to support, the renewal of both the AGOA and Haiti HOPE/HELP trade preference programs, with testimony before the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on AGOA’s renewal in July and testimony on Haiti HOPE/HELP before the International Trade Commission in February.
