"We are on our knees": U.S. tariffs devastate Lesotho's garment workers

Source: NPR

July 20, 2025 7:00 AM ET


MASERU, Lesotho —Crowds of women, bundled up in wooly hats and mittens against the sharp winter chill, wait every morning at the gates of a garment factory in Lesotho's capital, hoping that a few among them will be called in to work a shift. But no-one comes out and the factory gates – which bear the name of the Taiwanese company that runs it in red Chinese lettering – remain firmly shut.

It's one of the few factories in what used to be called "the Denim Capital of Africa" that's still operating after U.S. President Donald Trump announced in April he was slapping the impoverished nation with the highest tariffs in the world. Many others have been forced to close down, with buyers spooked by the 50 percent tariff announcement even though they've been paused, for now.

With the economy quickly unravelling the government declared a two-year national state of disaster in early July hoping to unlock funding to create jobs. But the challenge is immense and many people are already desperate. Maqajela Hlaatsane, 54, has been working in Maseru's garment industry for decades - a job that's allowed her to raise her children on her own. Like many here she's a single mother who has been empowered by joining the workforce.

Now she's unemployed and hungry, she says, pointing to the water bottle she carries around drinking to try to trick herself into feeling full. What food she has she's saving for her family. "I'm here looking for a job," she says, standing on the street in the garment district where the smell of sewage fills the air. "My family can't survive on water alone." Like many searching for work, she's unclear why the U.S.. imposed such massive tariffs on her desperately poor country, but they all keep repeating one name: "Trump, Trump, Trump."

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/20/nx-s1-5468516/lesotho-tariffs-africa