"‘Only job I know’: tiny Lesotho’s garment workers reel from Trump’s 50% tariffs", 4 April 2025

The day after Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs, Lesotho’s garment workers feared for their jobs.

Last year, Lesotho sent about 20% of its $1.1bn (£845m) of exports to the US, most of it clothing under a continent-wide trade agreement meant to help African countries’ development via tariff-free exports, as well as diamonds.

Now, all that is at risk, after the US president imposed a 50% tariff on the impoverished landlocked country...

Makhotso Moeti moved to Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, from the rural centre of the tiny mountainous kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa. “Factory work is the only job I’ve known for many years,” said Moeti, who attaches labels to Gap clothing. “If the factories shut down, I won’t have many options left. I’ll be forced to return home to the very poverty I thought I had escaped when I moved to the city.”...

Like the hard-hit, south-east Asian economies, the poor majority in these countries cannot afford expensive American products. In recent decades, China has overtaken western countries to become the largest trading partner of most African countries.

According to the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) US data portal, Lesotho exported $237m of goods last year to the US and imported $2.8m. Agoa, which has allowed tariff-free access to the US market for thousands of product types since 2000, created a thriving garment industry, accounting for about 20% of GDP...

In Madagascar, which has a population of about 32 million, Agoa has also nurtured a significant garment sector, which employs about 180,000 people in a country where GDP per head is just $575...

The future of Agoa, which will expire in September if it is not renewed by the US Congress, was looking precarious even before Trump’s announcement...

In Lesotho, Nthabiseng Khalele, a garment worker sheltering from the rain after a long day in the factory, said: “My hope and wish is that our prime minister could somehow reach out to President Trump and ask him to at least show some compassion for Lesotho. If we lose our jobs here, I’m almost certain that many of us will end up sleeping on empty stomachs.”