"'We are on our knees': U.S. tariffs devastate Lesotho's garment workers", 20 July 2025

Crowds of women...wait every morning at the gates of a garment factory in Lesotho's capital, hoping that a few among them will be called in to work a shift.

But no-one comes out and the factory gates...remain firmly shut.

It's one of the few factories in what used to be called "the Denim Capital of Africa" that's still operating after U.S. President Donald Trump announced in April he was slapping the impoverished nation with the highest tariffs in the world.

Many others have been forced to close down, with buyers spooked by the 50 percent tariff announcement even though they've been paused, for now.

With the economy quickly unravelling the government declared a two-year national state of disaster in early July hoping to unlock funding to create jobs...

Maqajela Hlaatsane, 54, has been working in Maseru's garment industry for decades...Like many here she's a single mother who has been empowered by joining the workforce.

Now she's unemployed and hungry, she says, pointing to the water bottle she carries around drinking to try to trick herself into feeling full. What food she has she's saving for her family...

"My family can't survive on water alone."...

Another factory [has] now stopped operations. Manager Restselisitsoe Moshoeshoe says it mainly exported athleisure wear to Walmart. But it closed a few weeks ago and he's had to send 2,000 workers home.

"We cannot get raw material, we cannot export…The orders have been stopped, because everybody doesn't know what's going to happen," he says.

"People who were supplying us with orders were scared," he explains, even though the tariffs were paused shortly after being announced...

A Taiwanese manager who comes out the factory gates, but doesn't want to be named because he isn't authorized to speak for the factory, tells NPR he too is worried for the industry here...

The trade minister says 12,000 garment workers stand to lose their jobs because of Trump's tariffs, but that's not all...

"The spillover effects, it's around 40,000 – those are people who are going to be touched one way or another," Minister Shelile told NPR...

In another Maseru district, Precious Garments – which produces Trump-branded golf shirts – is among the factories still operating, though it's not clear for how much longer. Workers have been told it too could fold in September...

Since Trump's tariffs announcement, Ramakatane is already only working two weeks out of every month and earning half her salary – about $80 a month now.

She also notes that many women working in the factories have HIV – in a country with high rates of infection...

There used to be lots of tents set up near the factories, where workers could go to get tested and get access to other services like contraceptives. One...is still operating but the local NGO worker insid...tells NPR all the nurses were sent home after Trump's USAID cuts. Now all he can do is give out self-testing kits for HIV...

Ramakatane is worried people could die: from loss of work, hunger, or HIV. And if she loses her job entirely, Ramakatane says, she doesn't know what she'll do.

"We are on our knees, we are on our knees…now our hope is only to God, to change Donald Trump's mind," she says.