Trump's highest tariff will kill tiny African kingdom of Lesotho, economist says By Marafaele Mohloboli April 3, 202510:15 AM EDT MASERU, April 3 (Reuters) - A 50% reciprocal trade tariff on Lesotho, the highest levy on U.S. President Donald Trump's long list of target economies, will kill the tiny Southern African kingdom that Trump ridiculed last month, an economic analyst there said on Thursday. Lesotho, which Trump described in March as a country "nobody has ever heard of", is one of the world's poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion. It has a large trade surplus with the United States, mostly made up of diamonds and textiles, including Levi's jeans. Its exports to the United States, which in 2024 totalled $237 million, account for more than 10% of its GDP. Trump on Wednesday imposed sweeping new tariffs on global trading partners, upending decades of rules-based trade and threatening cost increases for consumers. He said the "reciprocal" tariffs were a response to duties and other non-tariff barriers put on U.S. goods. Lesotho charges 99% tariffs on American goods, according to the U.S. administration. In Africa, the move signalled the end of the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) trade deal that was supposed to help African economies develop through preferential access to U.S. markets, trade experts said. It also compounded the pain after Trump dismantled USAID, the government agency that was a major supplier of aid to the continent. Oxford Economics said the textile sector, with some 40,000 workers, was Lesotho's biggest private employer and accounted for roughly 90% of manufacturing employment and exports. "Then you are having retailers who are selling food. And then you have residential property owners who are renting houses for the workers. So this means if the closure of factories were to happen, the industry is going to die and there will be multiplier effects," Qhesi said. "So Lesotho will be dead, so to say." The government of Lesotho, a mountainous nation of about 2 million people that is encircled by South Africa, had no immediate comment on the trade tariffs on Thursday. Its foreign minister told Reuters last month the country, which has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world, was already feeling the impact of the aid cuts as its health sector had been reliant on them. The formula used to calculate the U.S. tariffs took the U.S. trade deficit in goods with each country as a proxy for alleged unfair practices, then divided it by the amount of goods imported into the United States from that country. The resulting tariff equals half the ratio between the two, meaning countries import only small quantities of U.S. goods, such as Lesotho and Madagascar, have been hit with more punitive tariffs than much richer countries. Continued...
Lesotho is one of the South African "homelands" - basically native reservations landlocked inside South Africa. Musk's enmity to all things black South African seems a little too apparent to be a coincidence.
economy in shambles, and these devils are letting us know about the fat fck’s golf escapades… I want off this timeline
I wouldn't put it all on Musk, but I think you're spot on: this administration and it's backers want to watch the world burn. Some places more than others.
It would be a less dignified affair if he did show up. I love the last one by Craig Smith with the 'food is terrible and in such small portions!' vibe. Will obviously pull the lever for the Trump Agenda again in 2026 despite getting screwed over for 2 years first.
