By
Bloomberg
Published
October 27, 2025
One of the world’s poorest nations is reeling from the impression of US President Donald Trump’s tariff regime, which has crippled its key textile business and exacerbated already excessive unemployment.
That’s how the historic pivot in US commerce coverage is unfolding in Lesotho, the landlocked, southern African mountain kingdom whose denim manufacturing has been a uncommon financial shiny spot. Trump initially put 50% levies on imports from Lesotho, the very best within the world. Despite a minimize to 15% in August, these duties nonetheless outstrip these on rivals like Kenya, and a few factories have eradicated jobs as orders dried up.
“We are still in negotiations with the US government on a further reduction, maybe to 10% or to zero- where we were before,” Prime Minister Sam Matekane mentioned in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week. “The introduction of the tariffs have put us in a disadvantaged position” as a result of companies can relocate to nations the place levies are decrease, he mentioned.
Textiles is the largest business in Lesotho, a rustic of about 2.3 million folks. Those companies make use of 12,000 folks and not directly assist 40,000 jobs, supplying US retailers akin to Walmart Inc., JC Penney and Levi Strauss & Co. Before the brand new tariffs, most of of the nation’s exports to the US- its second-biggest commerce partner- entered duty-free below the now-defunct African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Before Trump took workplace, Lesotho’s central financial institution forecast modest enlargement this yr and subsequent for textile and clothes manufacturing. The new outlook: contractions of 9.9% and 13.3%. Trump’s tariffs are based mostly on nations’ commerce stability with the US, and Lesotho imported lower than $3 million in items from the US final yr, in contrast with exports of greater than $235 million.
Teboho Kobeli, the founding father of Lesotho-based Afri-Expo Textiles, mentioned the tariffs got here as a serious shock, comparable with the coronavirus pandemic. At the very least, Trump’s concentrating on of the nation serves as a “wake-up call” and a possibility to change the way in which the financial system operates. Unemployment was 30% final yr, the latest information present, rating among the many world’s highest.
“I would say ‘Thank you, President Trump, for making Lesotho known,’” he mentioned. “For the president of a powerful country like the US to mention Lesotho in his Congress is, you know, a powerful marketing tool.”