President Donald Trump has announced sweeping new tariffs on dozens of nations, including a record-setting 50% reciprocal tariff on the tiny southern African mountain kingdom of Lesotho — the highest levy imposed on any sovereign country by the United States.
Trump’s move targets at least 60 countries with duties starting at 10%, with Lesotho and other African nations bearing some of the heaviest hits. The White House said the tariffs are aimed at addressing what it described as long-standing trade imbalances that hurt American manufacturers.
In the case of Lesotho, the administration cited a 99% tariff on U.S. goods and a $264 million trade surplus in the kingdom’s favor as justification for the steep penalty.
Lesotho, which exports diamonds and apparel to the U.S., imported only $8 million in American goods in 2022, according to the Tralac Trade Law Centre in South Africa.
The U.S. government’s action also appears to signal the impending death of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a landmark trade deal from the Clinton administration that allowed duty-free access to the U.S. market for many African exports. The pact will expire in September, but trade experts say the tariffs effectively end AGOA months ahead of schedule.
“The reciprocal trade announcement policy will pull the AGOA rug from under our feet,” said Adrian Saville, an economist and professor at South Africa’s Gordon Institute of Business Science. “That will be gone. It will replace AGOA; you don’t have to wait for September.”
Other African nations are also reeling.
Madagascar faces a 47% tariff, Mauritius 40%, Botswana 37%, and South Africa — the continent’s largest exporter to the U.S. — 30%. For several of these countries, the tariffs could not come at a worse time as they struggle with severe poverty, natural disasters, or public health crises. Lesotho, for example, has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS infection rates and relies on South Africa for 85% of its imports.
“African countries are being penalized for having trade surpluses, some of them achieved by pursuing export-driven development policies, as advised by the U.S.,” Bloomberg Africa economist Yvonne Mhango wrote. “Lesotho exports apparel to the U.S., a product that until recently enjoyed duty-free access and helped create jobs for the youth that migrates in large numbers to neighboring South Africa. One of Trump’s arguments for these tariffs is to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Slapping high tariffs on Africa is not going to help this narrative.”
Lesotho now joins Saint Pierre and Miquelon — a French archipelago off the coast of Canada — as the only other territory to face a 50% reciprocal tariff from the Trump administration.
While acknowledging the setback, the South African presidency said the tariffs make it even more important to reach a new agreement with the U.S.
“The tariffs affirm the urgency to negotiate a new bilateral and mutually beneficial trade agreement with the U.S., as an essential step to secure long-term trade certainty,” the South African government said in a statement.
