"Trump’s tariffs have destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of women in Lesotho’s textile industry", 8 August 2025

US President Donald Trump has wrecked the livelihoods of thousands of women working in Lesotho’s textile sector by spooking the... African kingdom with 50% tariffs...before dropping it to 15% after the 90-day pause.

Unable to pay rent for their rooms in the cities, thousands have returned to their villages, whose subsistence farming-based rural economy cannot sustain their families, said Solong Senohe, the general secretary of the United Textile Employees (UNITE).

Desperate, many have taken the dangerous road across the border to labor for the illegal mining enterprises in South Africa...Their children are out of school because they were unable to pay the fees...

Before the tariffs took effect, Trump announced a 90-day pause on April 9, which was later extended. Finally, on August 7, the new rate – 15% for Lesotho – went into effect.” But the mere threat of 50% had already delivered such a blow to the economy that “to claw back … to where we were before … is going to take time,” maintains the trade minister.

Orders dried up for the 11 large employers – Precious Garments, Tzicc Clothing Manufacturers, Maseru-E Textiles, etc – that manufacture for popular US brands, including GAP, Reebok, Calvin Klein Jeanswear, Walmart, etc.

They employ about 12,000 mainly women workers – over a third of the 35,000 laboring in Lesotho’s textile industry. After rushing to deliver the existing orders before the tariffs took effect, they started laying off workers from late May onwards, said Senohe.

“The temporary workers on contract were fired. Those with permanent employment were sent on an unpaid leave for three months till September,” the UNITE leader told Peoples Dispatch. By then, employers hoped, clarity on tariffs would allow them to gauge the future of their US market and accordingly decide how many workers to retain.

He estimates that about 7,000 workers – over half of the 12,000 manufacturing for the US market – have thus been left without pay. Unable to pay rent without wages, most of them have returned to their villages...

Even if orders resume under the new reduced tariffs and workers are called back to factories in September, “who will pay all the money they already lost? If they start earning wages from October, it is only next year that they can pay the school fees. So their children have lost an academic year,” added Senohe.

Further, it is unlikely that all the roughly 7,000 workers’ jobs will be restored. The 15% tariff that went into effect on August 7 is not only a massive increase over the previous 0%, but also higher than the 10% Trump has imposed on Kenya and Swaziland (renamed Eswatini)...

This difference, he fears, might prove large enough for many companies to cut costs by shuttering factories in Lesotho and moving their production to competing countries with lower tariffs.

It is in the face of such adversity that the union will now negotiate with employers to salvage jobs and wages in this industry, so central to Lesotho’s economy that the mass lay-offs of its workers have also squeezed the livelihoods of taxi drivers, street vendors, etc.