"The pressure is too much’: Lesotho’s garment workers on the frontline of Trump tariffs", 7 January 2026

Every morning at 7am, women gather outside clothing factories in Maseru...hoping to be offered work. However, since Donald Trump imposed swingeing global tariffs in April 2025, those opportunities have been fewer and farther between.

Moleboheng Matsepe...has not had any work since September.

“The pressure is too much … We can’t even sleep at night,” said the 48-year-old, who supports five family members and now makes as little as 50 maloti (£2.23) a week doing occasional laundry jobs.

According to the trade ministry, there are about 36,000 textile workers – mostly women – in the country...A third of those workers make clothes for the US, including jeans for Levi’s..

The tariff was eventually reduced to 15%, which has still chilled Lesotho’s economy...

A government survey in August, to which 12 out of 15 clothing companies exporting to the US responded, reported 400 lay-offs. Five companies were operating their factories at 5-30% capacity and three had stopped operating altogether.

At Ever Successful Textiles, hundreds of sewing machines churned out...Reebok sports tops for the US and...children’s leggings for South African retailers. However, only 80% of 470 machines were operational and the company had 550 staff compared with 650 in 2024, said its HR manager, Malefetsane Phahla...

On 10 December, the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives’ ways and means committee voted for a three-year extension to Agoa. Trump’s administration has said it only supports a year-long extension.

Shelile said he was hopeful the three-year Agoa renewal would be passed by both houses of Congress by the end of January and then signed by Trump...However, the 15% “reciprocal” tariff would still apply. Shelile said that needed to be cut to 10%, the level of Eswatini, Ethiopia and Kenya, for Lesotho to remain competitive...

Mapuseletso Makhake said she was struggling to pay for sanitary towels and school fees for her 15-year-old daughter, as well as providing for her 19-year-old son and sick, elderly father in her home village.

The 48-year-old had not worked since a two-month contract packing Reebok clothing in late 2024. As she spoke about the difficulties she had faced since losing her husband in the late 2000s, tears ran down her face. “My heart breaks every time, because I don’t like the life I am living … I wish I had still had my husband here to take the burden with me.”