Smuggling is typically thought of as furtive and hidden, taking place under the radar and beyond the reach of the state. But in many cases, governments tacitly permit illicit cross-border commerce, or even devise informal arrangements to regulate it. Drawing on over 14 months of fieldwork in the borderlands of Tunisia and Morocco, and over 200 interviews with smugglers, street-level bureaucrats and borderland communities, this presentation sketches the key ingredients of an alternativel political economy of illegal trade in the Maghreb. It examines the rules and agreements that have frequently governed smuggling in North Africa, arguing that while states have long relied on it to secure political acquiescence and maintain order, the securitization of borders, wars, political change, and the pandemic have put these arrangements under pressure. What emerges is a re-negotiation of the terms on which borderland communities are integrated into national political settlements. The presentation ends on drawing out the implications of these re-negotiations not just for borderland communities in North Africa, but for the study of smuggling and state-building more widely.