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On Friday, Lesoto compiled a delegation to head to Washington to engage with the United States on tariffs that delete the risks of almost half of the exports, his trade minister said, in what could be a death to his economy.
50 percent of the reciprocal trade tariff on the tiny South African mountain kingdom was the highest levy on the list of targeted economies by US President Donald Trump.
“The last direction of politics that have taken the United States is shocking,” Mokhethi Shelile Minister Selile said in Parliament on Friday, adding that 45 percent of the exports went to the United States.
He said the officials had already hired the US embassy “to clarify and how, why Lesoto was involved in the list … such high reciprocal tariffs.”
On Wednesday, Trump hit US global trading partners with tariffs, which have been based on the rules for decades for which the campaign has long been saying that it is extremely favorable for rich countries like the United States. Justification for a particular tariff rate was not a white house theories about how the rates were calculated they appeared.
Around South Africa, the kingdom of two million people is one of the poorest countries of the world, with GDP per capita of $ 916 in 2023, according to the World Bank.
Lesot exports to the United States, mostly textiles for popular brands such as Levi’s jeans, as well as diamonds, represented more than one tenth of GDP in the country.
“The 50 percent reciprocal tariff introduced by the US Government will kill textile and clothing in Lesot,” he told Reuters Thabo Qhesi, an independent economic analyst based in Maseruu.
US exports to Lesoto 2024. It was $ 2.8 million, according to the US government. Importing US goods from Lesot in 2024. It was $ 237.3 million, compared to 2023, But less than in many last yearsWhen the character hovered near or above a tag of $ 300 million.
According to the observatory of economic complexity, the delivery trucks, vaccines and food preparation machines made up most of American exports in Lesoto 2023.
Previous pain from USAID cutting
Oxford Economics said that the textile sector, with about 40,000 workers, was the largest private employer of Lesota and consisted of approximately 90 percent of production and exports.
“Then you have few who sell food dealers. And then you have residential property owners who rent workers’ houses. So, it means that if the closure of factories, the industry will die and will be a multiplier,” Qhesi said.
The auxiliary reciprocal tariffs of US President Donald Trump are described as “carefully planned”, but among the goals are the Lašotho African nation of Lesotho, the island house of the US Air Air Base, and the Australian Islands of Heard and McDonald – where most of the Ponguins residents are.
Shelile, Minister, said Lesoto composes a high -level delegation to the United States. In the medium term, he said, the kingdom would “increase effort to export to alternative markets such as the European Union and Africa Free Continental Trade.”
Lesoto has previously influenced the change of Trump administration in philosophy from previous administrations relative to the side of help.
Her foreign minister told Reuters last month that the country, which has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world, has already felt the influence of the United States for international development (USAID), because its health sector relied on them.
Trump refused a part of the assistance that was previously intended for Lesotho in addressing the Congress last month, characterizing as a “African nation” that “no one has ever heard” for. The laughter of the Republican legislators could be heard in the chamber of the House of Representatives after his comment.
