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Lesotho, a Small African Nation, Expects a Big Hit From Trump’s Tariffs

Published

1 year ago

April 5, 2025

Lesotho, a Small African Nation, Expects a Big Hit From Trump’s Tariffs

The nation that the Trump administration slapped with the heftiest tariff this week is a small, rural, landlocked country in southern Africa that is among the world’s poorest.

Lesotho, which makes denim that goes into American-branded jeans, was hit with a 50 percent tariff. It was among several lower-income countries on the continent that were shocked by levies high above the minimum 10 percent imposed on nearly all of America’s trading partners. Madagascar, where three-quarters of the population lives in poverty, now will be met with a 47 percent tariff when its apparel, vanilla and other exports enter the United States.

Products from Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Libya and Mauritius all now have tariffs above 30 percent, as does South Africa, which has come under particular attack by the Trump administration.

Mr. Trump has justified the across-the-board tariffs by declaring that the world trading system has played the United States for a chump who picked up the tab for the world’s moochers.

But Lesotho is hardly a big player in global trade: It imported less than $3 million in goods from the United States and exported $240 million there last year.

The tariffs come as much of the African continent is already reeling. Just weeks ago, the Trump administration ended billions of dollars in aid to Africa that undergirded many countries’ health care systems and disaster relief efforts.

At the same time, governments across the continent are coping with a foreign debt load that exceeds $1.1 trillion. Many are spending more on repaying their loans than on health care or education.

For the most part, manufactured exports from Africa to the United States are minuscule. But to countries like Lesotho, the impact of tariffs is enormous. Exports of denim and diamonds make up more than a tenth of the country’s gross domestic product.

This will “devastate the economy,” said Jacques Nel, head of Africa Macro at Oxford Economics, a research firm. Lesotho is already a poor country. It has a population of two million and its entire national output is about $2 billion a year, with an annual per capita income of $975.

“This has nothing to do with actual tariffs,” Mr. Nel said. “They can’t import a lot from the U.S., because they don’t have a lot of money.”

The textile industry is Lesotho’s biggest private employer and produces its number-one export. The sector was nurtured after the United States passed the African Growth and Opportunity Act in 2000. Designed to boost manufacturing across the continent, the law removed most duties on goods from sub-Saharan Africa. That law expires later this year, although Mr. Trump effectively ended it this week.

Lesotho’s factories have made garments — particularly denim — for manufacturers like Levi’s and Wrangler. And although Mr. Trump recently called Lesotho a country that “nobody has ever heard of,” his own Trump-branded Greg Norman golf shirts feature labels that say “Made in Lesotho.”

Lesotho’s trade minister, Mokhethi Shelile, said the country has 11 factories that employ 12,000 workers. Seventy percent of what they produce is exported to the United States. “We are a small economy,” Mr. Shelile said. “We just have to speak to the U.S. administration because the tariff is not based on facts.”

Other top exporters of textiles in Africa, like Madagascar (47 percent tariff) and Kenya (10 percent), will also feel the sting.

Because South Africa does more trade with the United States, exporting automobiles, agricultural goods and more, it will be most affected, said Thea Fourie at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

African nations whose major exports are energy or certain critical minerals will be spared because the administration has exempted those items from tariffs.

While the United States is imposing tariffs on the relatively small amount of goods from Africa — just $39 billion worth last year — China has been trying to encourage trade. It eliminated all import duties on products from 33 African countries in December.

A bigger concern is the knock-on effects that the tariffs are expected to have on the global economy. The outlook has dimmed over the past week and analysts are expecting slower growth.

“Even African countries not facing very high tariffs are going to be suffering,” said Jayati Ghosh, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

As is the case with any global downturn, the poorest countries will feel the sharpest effects. Worsening economic prospects could slow trade with other partners like China and Europe. It also discourages investors.

If inflation prompts central banks to raise interest rates, African countries with large debt burdens are in for a double whammy. Their loan payments — most of which are priced in dollars — will increase at the same time that their ability to earn foreign exchange through exports is crippled.

Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, the president and chief executive of the African Center for Economic Transformation, said the only way forward is to develop regional trade networks within the continent, a long-running goal.

The continent has to look for “opportunities to build intra-African trade,” she said.

Zimasa Matiwane contributed reporting from Lesotho.

Related Topics:africa Customs (Tariff)developing countries Featured International Trade and World Market Jeans (Apparel)Lesotho

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Business

Video: How the Iran War Is Affecting Inflation

Published

6 hours ago

April 11, 2026

Press Room

Video: How the Iran War Is Affecting Inflation

new video loaded: How the Iran War Is Affecting Inflation

Ben Casselman, our chief economics correspondent, describes how the increase in prices as a result of the war in Iran is beginning to show up in the data, and what could come next.

By Ben Casselman, Nour Idriss, Stephanie Swart and Sutton Raphael

April 11, 2026

Business

Man charged with arson after setting fires inside Ontario Mills mall

Published

7 hours ago

April 11, 2026

Press Room

Man charged with arson after setting fires inside Ontario Mills mall

A man was arrested Friday morning after he set multiple fires inside stores at the Ontario Mills mall, officials said.

Ontario police said they responded to the mall at about 10:30 a.m. after callers reported that a man with a lighter and a backpack was intentionally setting fires.

Officers found the suspect, who they identified as 28-year-old Luis Javier Gallegos Jr. of Rancho Cucamonga.

The police said in a statement that Gallegos did not comply with their requests, and they used force to arrest him.

Both Gallegos and an officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the arrest, the police said.

After being treated at a hospital, Gallegos was booked into the West Valley Detention Center and charged with felony arson, the police said.

Police said they are working to identify a motive for the crime and whether there is any connection to the April 7 arson at the Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Ontario.

Prosecutors say the inferno destroyed the 1.2 million square-foot warehouse and the paper products inside, resulting in $500 million in damages.

Chamel Abdulkarim, a Highland resident who worked at the warehouse, is facing both state and federal arson charges for setting the fire.

Abdulkarim, 29, filmed himself setting fire to multiple pallets of paper goods, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.

In the video, he says, “If you’re not going to pay us enough to [expletive] live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this [expletive].”

Anyone with information about the fires Friday at Ontario Mills Mall is asked to contact the city’s police department at (909) 986-6711.

Business

‘It’s killing everything.’ California’s truckers are buckling under country’s priciest diesel

Published

20 hours ago

April 11, 2026

Press Room

‘It’s killing everything.’ California’s truckers are buckling under country’s priciest diesel

Record diesel prices are crushing California’s truckers, forcing them to adjust to avoid losses as they grapple with the most expensive pump prices in the country.

Greg Dubuque’s 40 drivers are in a constant diesel-devouring loop. Their big rigs pick up loads of electronics, office furniture and other goods around Los Angeles. They drive close to 1,000 miles through the Mojave Desert and over the Rocky Mountains to Denver. They bring back containers full of everything from pinto beans to home remodeling products.

One tank of gas for his vehicles cost $600 a couple of months ago. Today it costs $1,000. That’s a record high and more than 35% above the country’s average.

“California sets itself apart from the rest of the country when it comes to pricing,” said Dubuque, a third-generation trucker and general manager of Liberty Linehaul West. “Now it’s really out of control.”

The average price of a gallon of diesel in California got close to $7.75 this week, up 50% from a month ago, according to the American Automobile Assn. The national average of diesel is closer to $5.65 at recent peaks.

Dubuque, general manager of Liberty Linehaul West, says small truckers are hurting with out-of-control gas prices.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The trucking industry was already reeling from a prolonged freight recession, a crackdown on immigrant drivers, and the adverse impacts of tariffs, all of which contributed to a significant increase in bankruptcy filings in the industry.

Now, the price shock from the war with Iran has become yet another headache for the beleaguered industry that hauls 70% of all freight in America.

“It’s got a tremendous impact on the industry,” said Eric Sauer, the chief executive of California Trucking Assn.

And it is not just truckers being affected. The rising prices of ground and air transportation will eventually be paid for by consumers.

The biggest companies are already passing the extra transportation costs on to consumers. FedEx, United Parcel Service, the U.S. Postal Service and Amazon said they will all start charging an extra fee. Amazon said it would apply a 3.5% charge to merchants for its fulfillment service. USPS will charge an 8% delivery fee for certain packages.

“The longer energy prices remain elevated, the more households will need to confront tradeoffs,” said Philip N. Jefferson, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, at a recent lecture.

Liberty Linehaul West keeps a daily list of fuel prices to help its truckers in Montebello, Calif.

This could eventually dampen demand for other products and further hurt the economy, Jefferson noted.

“Families who depend on petroleum products to commute to jobs and school and to heat their homes may need to pull back on more discretionary forms of spending,” he said. “That could potentially result in lower spending at restaurants or retailers. It could also result in households carrying elevated levels of debt.”

Truckers often rely on fuel surcharges to cover rising fuel costs. It’s an industry practice for customers to pay a fuel surcharge, on top of the base freight rate, to offset unexpected fuel price increases. The fee is calculated based on a weekly diesel price index.

Sukhdeep Singh, who owns Merced County-based Cali Brothers Truck Lines, said standard surcharge policies are insufficient when there are wild swings in fuel prices.

“It’s killing everything,” he said.

Singh’s business faced challenges earlier this year when a crackdown on immigrant drivers led to sudden departures, shrinking the available labor pool and leaving 15 of his trucks unused. Despite the diminished fleet, his weekly fuel expenses have surged from $80,000 to $130,000.

Smaller trucking companies are getting hit first.

Major carriers with thousands of trucks have different ways to hedge against price fluctuations that insulate them from temporary volatility. They have long-term shipping contracts and have greater flexibility in surcharges.

Smaller carriers are often paid at a flat rate and have no certainty about whether they will recover the higher fuel costs.

On a recent trip to Denver, one of Dubuque’s trucks had to consider returning empty, as the going rate barely covered gas to get back to Los Angeles.

“I wouldn’t be able to cover my cost,” he said.

He has been instructing drivers to save on fuel by planning their routes, finding truck stops with the best rates, and avoiding California when possible.

“Where we’re trying to avoid buying fuel is here in the state of California,” he said.

He is also asking his regular customers to pitch in.

A Roadies Inc. truck, right, leaves for a delivery in Bakersfield.

Liberty Linhaul West’s fleet also works with L.A.’s entertainment and event industries, transporting staging, lighting and other equipment for events such as the Oscars, Grammys and Country Music Awards. He’s started calling customers with whom he had flat rates to renegotiate prices.

“We started calling customers, saying, ‘Okay, we need some emergency help here,’” Dubuque said.

While he appreciates that the extra fees and restrictions on fuel help build roads and protect the environment in California, he would love to see more support from the state.

“I think the government needs to interact with the oil and fuel world and talk about how they can take this pain away from us, or at least try to lessen this blow,” he said.

Without an end to high oil prices or some help from the government, customers can expect the same sticker shock the trucking industry is struggling with.

“Whether you’re a grocer, a meatpacking plant, a vegetable grower, that cost has to be factored in, because it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re faced with it,” Dubuque said. “The impact was so hard and so fast, I would think we’re going to start seeing just another increase to the cost of goods for people.”