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.
“We are waiting anxiously for a possibility that we will be given a good, favourable rate and that favourable rate . . . can only be 10 per cent or less,” Shelile said. “Anything beyond that, we fear that our textile industry that is exporting to the United States will either have to change to other markets or simply just fold up.”