Economic analyst said Thursday that the counter -tarit duties imposed on Lesoto amount to 50%, which is the highest fees on a long list of targeted economies from US President Donald Trump, will eliminate the small kingdom in the southern African continent and that Trump mocked last month.
And Ladoto, which Trump described last March as a country that “has not heard before” is one of the poorest countries in the world, a local GDE, just over two billion dollars.
Lesuto has a large trade surplus with the United States, most of which consist of diamonds and textiles, including jeans from Levis.
Its exports to the United States, which in 2024, represented about 237 million dollars, more than 10% of its gross domestic product.
Commercial experts said that this step refers in Africa the end of the trade agreement known as the Law of Growth and Opportunities in Africa, which is supposed to help African economies to develop through preferential access to US markets.
The pain was also aggravated after Trump’s dismantling the US Agency for International Development, the government agency that was the main supplier of aid to the continent.
“The counter -tariffs will spend 50% imposed by the US government on the textile and clothing sector in Lesoto,” Thabu Kishi, an independent economic analyst residing in Massero, told Reuters.
“So, Lesoto will die, if it is permissible to speak,” he added.
Lisuto responds
The past month, the Lesoto government expressed its “severe shock” regarding Trump’s statements that it is a country that no one has heard, stressing that such statements reflect a great ignorance of the country’s economic, social and political reality.
The media quoted a government official, describing Trump’s statements as “insulting and irresponsible”, stressing that Lesoto “is not a country that relies on alms, but rather seeks to build fair partnerships based on mutual respect.”
The spokesman added that the relations between Lesoto and the United States are based on solid diplomacy foundations, and that Trump’s statements “represent only an unremitting individual opinion of the current US government.”
He also pointed out that the United States remained a strategic partner in the fields of health, education and development, and that “American aid has always been appreciated, but it was never a humiliation worker as some are trying to photograph it.”
The anger was not limited to the government only, but extended to the street, as hundreds of citizens went out last month in the capital, Masiro, to express their rejection of Trump’s statements.
According to local sources, the protests witnessed a wide participation of various groups, raising banners calling on Washington to “respect the sovereignty of Lesoto and not to deal with it with the mentality of hegemony.”
