On April 3, US President Donald Trump announced the so-called “mirror tariffs” for international exporters, including those from Africa.
Unexpectedly for many, the highest duties (50%) fell on the small and extremely poor African kingdom of Lesotho, which Trump said “nobody has ever heard of.” For this country, such high duties could be deadly. We tell you why Lesotho has so annoyed Trump and what they produce and sell there
China has been actively promoting its interests in Africa for more than 10 years, and Lesotho is no exception. According to du Plessis, Chinese companies build roads in the mountains very efficiently and quickly. In 2023, China ranked second in exports to Lesotho after South Africa (9% and 79%, respectively). According to Andrei Maslov, Director of the Center for African Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, these ties with South Africa and China could have been one of the reasons for such “sanctions” from Trump. “Lesotho was included in this list for re-exporting from South Africa, with which the US currently has tense relations, they are perceived as part of a single economic system,” Maslov believes. “For example, there is a power plant there that supplies South Africa.” It is South Africa that ranks first in Lesotho’s exports with a share of 53%, followed by Belgium (23%) and the US (18%).
It is not only Lesotho’s textile industry that could suffer from higher duties. Kenya is the largest exporter of industrial goods to the US. According to Business Daily, about 60,000 Kenyans, engaged in businesses with a turnover of more than 50 billion Kenyan shillings ($384 million), depend on trade with the US. From 2019 to 2023, Kenya exported goods worth 250 billion Kenyan shillings ($1.94 billion) to the US, mainly in the agricultural and textile industries. According to the Kenya Export Processing Zones Authority, by 2023, the value of investments in companies that traded with the US under AGOA reached 29 billion Kenyan shillings ($224 million). Kenya is the fifth most dependent country on AGOA after Zambia, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Benin.