"Africa’s top garment exporter could fold under US tariffs, minister says", 12 July 2025

Lesotho’s trade minister has warned that the country’s textiles industry, a major exporter to brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler in the US, risks having to fold if Donald Trump presses ahead with 50 per cent tariffs.

Mokhethi Shelile told the Financial Times that a national “state of disaster” declared this week would allow the government to fast track the creation of 60,000 jobs in other sectors over two years, as it prepares for the end to the pause on the so-called liberation day tariffs the US president announced in April...

“There are massive lay-offs ongoing,” said Teboho Kobeli, founder of Afri Expo...“Unless [factories] are doing other orders beside US orders, they are totally shutting down.”

The luckier ones, he said, “are just finishing up outstanding orders that were in the pipeline. There are no new orders coming in.”...

Colette van der Ven, chief executive of Tulip Consulting...said Lesotho contributes only about 0.02 per cent of the US total deficit, meaning a 50 per cent reciprocal tariff “makes zero sense”...

Speaking from a fashion buyers’ event in Cape Town where Lesotho exporters were showcasing their wares, Shelile said the ongoing turmoil over tariffs had pressured the government into redoubling efforts to diversify its buyer market.

“We are making inroads into the South African market to sell some of the things that would be going to the US.”...

But analysts warned that diversification efforts may not provide an easy solution, particularly within the continent...