A Kenyan factory making jeans for US stores will start firing hundreds of workers this week as American lawmakers failed to renew Africa's duty-free access in time, its boss said Friday.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has been a cornerstone of trade relations for 25 years, allowing the United States to buy billions of dollars of duty-free cars, clothes and other items from select African countries each year.

At meetings in New York this week, African leaders and business representatives were given off-the-record assurances from top Trump administration officials that the AGOA would eventually be renewed, said Pankaj Bedi, CEO of the United Aryan factory in Kenya, which exports Wrangler and Levi's jeans under the deal.

But there is now no chance that will happen before the

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