Lesotho declares state of disaster as US tariffs threaten textile industry

The Kingdom of Lesotho has declared a national state of disaster in response to a looming economic crisis triggered by the United States' decision to impose steep tariffs on its exports.

The warning comes as President Donald Trump’s administration moves forward with a 50 per cent tariff on goods from Lesotho — a devastating blow to the country’s textile industry, which supplies major American brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler.

Lesotho’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Small Business Development, Mokhethi Shelile, told the Financial Times that the new tariff regime threatens to collapse the country’s key export sector. “We fear that our textile industry that is exporting to the United States will either have to change to other markets or simply just fold up,” Shelile said.

The textile sector has been a cornerstone of Lesotho’s economy, bolstered for more than two decades by the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows for tariff-free access to American markets. With a population of just 2.3 million, Lesotho has emerged as sub-Saharan Africa’s largest garment exporter to the U.S.

Trump’s planned tariffs — among the highest applied to any country — have put this success story at risk. The pause on the so-called "liberation day tariffs," announced by the White House in April, is expected to end soon, prompting urgent action by the Lesotho government.

In declaring a state of disaster, authorities aim to fast-track the creation of 60,000 new jobs in sectors outside the textile industry over the next two years, Shelile said. This is part of a broader effort to shield the economy from the fallout of the trade measures.

“We are waiting anxiously for a possibility that we will be given a good, favourable rate and that favourable rate . . . can only be 10 per cent or less,” Shelile added.

Trump has previously dismissed Lesotho — a landlocked mountain kingdom — as “a country nobody has ever heard of,” despite its longstanding trade relationship with the United States under AGOA.

By Vugar Khalilov