Nigeria is staring at a potential 40 percent tariff wall on imports into the United States after President Donald Trump announced sweeping penalties on countries that maintain commercial ties with Iran, deepening pressure on African exporters already grappling with protectionist US trade policies.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that Washington would impose a twenty-five percent tariff on all countries doing business with Tehran, applying to “any and all” trade with the United States and taking effect immediately.
The move follows a renewed crackdown by Iranian authorities on anti-government protests after the collapse of the rial late last year.
When combined with the fifteen percent reciprocal tariff imposed on Nigerian exports in the previous round of US trade measures, exporters now face a cumulative forty percent barrier into the American market, a level analysts say could severely distort trade flows.
The development also appears to remove the informal energy carve-outs that spared Nigeria’s oil and gas exports from the worst of last year’s restrictions, leaving energy shipments exposed to the highest US duties in decades despite their strategic importance.
Nigeria’s exposure stems from a recent surge in trade with Iran, driven almost entirely by fertiliser imports. United Nations trade data show that Nigeria imported about $360 million worth of goods from Iran in the decade to 2022, with the bulk concentrated in the final two years of that period.
Despite the growing risk from Washington, Abuja has continued to deepen engagement with Tehran.
Just last month, Nigeria’s foreign ministry held talks with Iran’s new ambassador focused on energy cooperation and expanded trade into mining and downstream industries, reinforcing a relationship anchored by shared memberships in OPEC and other multilateral groupings.
Trade experts warn that the tariff shock could further weaken Nigeria’s already fragile export competitiveness in the US market.
Obiora Madu, director general of the African Centre for Supply Chain and President of Association of Outsourcing Professionals (AOPN), said the latest levy compounds earlier US measures and would almost certainly reduce demand for Nigerian exports, particularly energy shipments and small non-oil goods.
“Those duties will definitely affect volume. They will reduce interest on the side of the buyers of Nigerian products,” he said.
He noted that exporters are likely to face a difficult choice between absorbing part of the tariff cost to retain American buyers or accelerating a pivot towards alternative markets outside the United States.
“You have to give up something for you to be able to maintain the level of market that you had before.”
Madu added that the development exposes the growing risks of reliance on Western markets at a time of rising protectionism, arguing that Nigeria and other African economies will need to rethink their export strategy and diversify trade destinations as global trade rules become more volatile.
“It’s a lesson that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) must work. If it doesn’t, we are in trouble as far as trade is concerned.”
Despite accounting for 20 percent of the world population and most of its natural resources, Africa’s contribution to global trade hovers around 3 percent.
“We are not doing well,” Madu said. “These complications that have come only mean that we have to come together and be able to change because being the single biggest market in the world means that we can change things.”
