How a country Donald Trump never ‘heard of’ ended up in his crosshairs

Under a sea of warehouse lights, workers at Lesotho’s Precious Garments snip, sew and press fabrics into 10,000 units of clothing each day. Among their most popular items: Trump-branded golf shirts.

The polo stripe, sold by former professional golfer and Donald Trump superfan Greg Norman, is the product of a vibrant textiles industry in the mountain kingdom of 2.3mn that also manufactures for brands such as Levi’s, Wrangler and Foot Locker.

Recently dismissed by Trump as a country “nobody has ever heard of”, Lesotho is the largest African garments exporter to the US and a rare success story born out of Washington’s 25-year-old African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), introduced under then-president Bill Clinton to offer tariff-free access to the world’s poorest continent.

All that is now at stake. “I was proud [of making Trump shirts], but now I’m not because I see I was doing business with somebody who is not interested or trustworthy,” Gerard Tsepe, the regional manager, said as he reflected on the so-called “reciprocal” 50 per cent tariffs the US president has threatened to impose on Lesotho, one of the highest rates on any country.

At $240mn of exports, Lesotho accounts for less than 0.02 per cent of the US’s trade deficit. Yet even without Trump’s higher “reciprocal” tariffs, which have now been paused for 90 days, executives and officials say the new blanket tariff rate of 10 per cent could still destroy an industry built on razor-thin margins and the US’s own decades-old trade policy.

The duties “make a mockery of Agoa, which was intended to help developing economies grow”, said Nkopane Monyane, a businessman and former ambassador who for years ran a major garment factory.

He added textile owners still did not know whether US buyers would absorb the 10 per cent tariff, which went into effect this month, or cancel orders. “For a small country like Lesotho, maybe this will be a wake-up call to doing more African trade instead.”

Faced with catastrophic economic consequences, Lesotho has been forced to join the queue of countries seeking to appease Trump with economic concessions — an apparent quid pro quo that has provoked unease at home and exposed the vulnerability of smaller countries the US president has targeted.

Lesotho this week granted Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Starlink a 10-year operating licence, days after Prime Minister Sam Matekane said the country was “actively removing obstacles to US investment, addressing issues like Starlink, energy and hospitality investment approvals”.

Officials have denied the licence was fast-tracked. But in a memo to the US Department of State seen by the Financial Times, foreign minister Lejone Mpotjoane also offered to greenlight the construction of a Marriott hotel and consider importing corn and wheat from the US.

Lesotho is also considering accepting third country national deportees from the US and deploying soldiers to protect US companies in mineral-rich DR Congo, Mother Jones reported. The foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

“Given the transactional nature of the [Trump] administration it may work,” said Lebohang Thotanyana, a former mining minister and independent analyst. “But the Lesotho government is undermining the industry regulator. The way it is being done it is clear they are buying the Americans.”

Mokhethi Shelile, Lesotho’s trade minister, said his phone had been ringing nonstop for days as the government tried to work out a solution. “I’m not enjoying this newfound fame. There are better ways to be famous,” he said.

He acknowledged the US “have bigger things to think about than a small country”, but said the trade delegation planned to “ask them what else they would like us to do and if it’s reasonable, we are happy to consider it”.

Another official said part of the difficulty was knowing who to approach because the Trump administration has yet to put a full Africa team in place.

Lesotho’s garments sector has long been dominated by east Asian factory owners and investors, some of whom crossed over from South Africa in the 1980s to bypass apartheid-era sanctions on their exports.

In 2002, following Agoa’s implementation, more Asian investors saw an opportunity to use their knowhow and global garment connections to tap the pact’s benefits.

Taiwanese multinational Nien Hsing, which also runs operations in Mexico and Vietnam, built its largest operation in Lesotho, where it makes some 600,000 units of clothing monthly for brands including Levi’s. A fifth of its exports go to neighbouring South Africa, while the rest is US-bound.

The apparel sector is the southern African country’s biggest private sector employer, with 30,000 direct jobs and tens of thousands more people working indirectly, according to the country’s main business chamber.

The reams of cotton being stretched, cut and sewn at Nien Hsing’s factory are a testament to the global nature of the business: cotton sourced from Egypt and West Africa is spun into denim, which then travels to South African ports before landing in the US.

Ricky Chang, administrative director at Nien Hsing, said even smaller increases in tariffs would be “unbearable . . . the textile sector runs on very tiny [profit] margins”.

If the “reciprocal” tariffs go into effect, he added, buyers would look to “other strong players” in the region including Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa, whose own impending US tariffs range from 10 per cent to 30 per cent. “If they can all produce the same product with the same quality, which country will you place your order in?”

Lebohang said the country had failed to truly capitalise on Agoa by building additional infrastructure, such as cotton mills, that would allow textiles to be competitive in other markets beyond the US.

The aim of Agoa was that “over time we would be able to stand on our own feet in terms of market diversification”, he said. “We failed to do that. In all reality, it’s been the Taiwanese growth opportunity.”

For now, Nien Hsing has no plans to move. While countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and Cambodia offered greater efficiency and regulatory stability in the long run, Chang said they had heavy capital investments in Lesotho, while relocating would also require cost-heavy switches to using machines rather than manpower. “We want to stay in Lesotho, but we need the right environment,” he said.

Its employees, who earn an average of R2,882 ($152) a month, are on edge.

“I am worried and so is every single person in the factory,” said Moleboheng Pea, human resources manager at Nien Hsing. “Everyone is listening to the radio, reading the newspapers and watching the news.”