An summary of textile factories on July 5, 2025 in Ha Thetsane Industrial Space in Maseru, Lesotho. The tiny mountain kingdom has round 35,000 garment employees and plenty of of them face an unsure future.
Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Pictures Europe
cover caption
toggle caption
Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Pictures Europe
MASERU, Lesotho —Crowds of girls, bundled up in wooly hats and mittens in opposition to the sharp winter chill, wait each morning on the gates of a garment manufacturing facility in Lesotho’s capital, hoping that just a few amongst them will likely be referred to as in to work a shift.
However no-one comes out and the manufacturing facility gates – which bear the identify of the Taiwanese firm that runs it in purple Chinese language lettering – stay firmly shut.
It is one of many few factories in what was once referred to as “the Denim Capital of Africa” that is nonetheless working after U.S. President Donald Trump introduced in April he was slapping the impoverished nation with the very best tariffs on the planet.
Many others have been pressured to shut down, with patrons spooked by the 50 p.c tariff announcement regardless that they have been paused, for now.
With the financial system rapidly unravelling the federal government declared a two-year nationwide state of catastrophe in early July hoping to unlock funding to create jobs. However the problem is immense and many individuals are already determined.
Maqajela Hlaatsane, 54, has been working in Maseru’s garment trade for many years – a job that is allowed her to boost her kids on her personal. Like many right here she’s a single mom who has been empowered by becoming a member of the workforce.
Now she’s unemployed and hungry, she says, pointing to the water bottle she carries round ingesting to attempt to trick herself into feeling full. What meals she has she’s saving for her household.
“I am right here searching for a job,” she says, standing on the road within the garment district the place the scent of sewage fills the air. “My household cannot survive on water alone.”
Like many trying to find work, she’s unclear why the U.S.. imposed such large tariffs on her desperately poor nation, however all of them hold repeating one identify: “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
Commerce Imbalance
The U.S. chief says he imposed the tariffs in April due to a commerce imbalance between the 2 international locations. Final 12 months, the tiny mountain Kingdom surrounded solely by South Africa exported $237 million in items to the US – principally clothes– whereas the US exported simply $3 million to Lesotho.
Girls wait in line for work outdoors a garment manufacturing facility in Maseru, Lesotho. Work right here has dried up as the specter of Trump’s tariffs have hit a as soon as thriving trade exhausting.
Kate Bartlett/NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Kate Bartlett/NPR
Girls wait in line for work outdoors a garment manufacturing facility in Maseru, Lesotho. Work right here has dried up as the specter of Trump’s tariffs have hit a as soon as thriving trade exhausting.
Kate Bartlett/NPR
However Lesotho’s authorities argues it is a signal {that a} key U.S. coverage launched below former President George Bush has been working precisely as meant. The African Progress and Alternative Act (AGOA) permits some international locations on the continent tariff-free entry to the U.S. market.
Lesotho made probably the most of it, and shortly Taiwanese corporations had been organising factories in Maseru, producing t-shirts, sportswear and different attire for big American manufacturers like Levi, Wrangler and Walmart.
African leaders are nervous as a result of Congress will likely be deciding on whether or not to resume 25-year-old AGOA in September, however Lesotho’s Commerce Minister Mokhethi Shelile says it is already mainly useless.
“AGOA, in impact it is already kind of been scrapped with the tariffs,” he advised NPR in his workplace in an unassuming outdated constructing in Maseru’s small, dusty CBD.
“It is good worth chain and if you happen to reduce it, it can absolutely hit even the U.S. itself,” mentioned the minister, including that the commerce imbalance Trump objects to is as a result of Lesotho merely cannot afford many U.S. merchandise.
Maqajela Hlaatsane, far proper, talks to different ladies searching for work outdoors a garment manufacturing facility in Maseru, Lesotho, on July 15, 2025.
Kate Bartlett/NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Kate Bartlett/NPR
“It was a very good coverage that has given livelihoods for folks right here and I wish to imagine some persons are benefiting within the U.S. as properly,” he mentioned, additionally noting that the federal government just lately gave Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite tv for pc service a license to function within the nation.
One other manufacturing facility sits throughout the street from the working manufacturing facility the place Hlaatsane and others are queuing for work. However its now stopped operations. Supervisor Restselisitsoe Moshoeshoe says it primarily exported athleisure put on to Walmart. However it closed just a few weeks in the past and he is needed to ship 2,000 employees residence.
“We can not get uncooked materials, we can not export…The orders have been stopped, as a result of all people does not know what is going on to occur,” he says.
“Individuals who had been supplying us with orders had been scared,” he explains, regardless that the tariffs had been paused shortly after being introduced.
Levi’s and Vetkoek
Throughout city it is lunchtime on the Levi’s manufacturing facility.
Staff come out and eat their lunch below the clear blue skies, surrounded on all sides by mountains, some snowcapped. Mpolai Sementhe, tucking right into a lunchbox of pap, a mealie meal staple meals, has sewn the quintessential American denims for years. She’s by no means owned a pair although.
Garment manufacturing facility employees iron denims on July 3, 2025 in Maseru, Lesotho. The tiny nation is Africa’s denim hub, now threatened by Trumps tariffs.
Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Pictures Europe
cover caption
toggle caption
Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Pictures Europe
The denims made in Lesotho aren’t meant for the native market – sarcastically, folks have to purchase them again second-hand. The markets listed here are filled with distributors promoting the West’s discarded clothes.
One other Levi’s employee, Makuotso Sebatane, mentioned whereas she’s undecided why the U.S. has imposed these tariffs on Lesotho, she thinks perhaps it is as a result of Trump mentioned “no-one is aware of the place Lesotho is.” He made the feedback earlier this 12 months, when explaining his USAID cuts to Congress.
A Taiwanese supervisor who comes out the manufacturing facility gates, however does not wish to be named as a result of he is not licensed to talk for the manufacturing facility, tells NPR he too is frightened for the trade right here.
Numerous cottage industries in makeshift tin shacks have sprung up on a subject subsequent to the Levi’s manufacturing facility. In a single, with nation and western music blaring from the radio, cobbler Tumelo Rakoti, 34, fixes employees’ sneakers. However he says enterprise is sluggish lately as no-one needs to spend cash throughout such unsure instances.
The commerce minister says 12,000 garment employees stand to lose their jobs due to Trump’s tariffs, however that is not all – and Lesotho already has 49 p.c youth unemployment.
“The spillover results, it is round 40,000 – these are people who find themselves going to be touched a technique or one other,” Minister Shelile advised NPR. Folks just like the cobbler, the taxi drivers who take the employees to and from the factories, and others.
Close to the cobbler’s shack, two teenage ladies run a tuckshop promoting vetkoek, a deep-fried bread. Their enterprise can be struggling for the reason that garment employees began purse-tightening.
Ntsoaki Heqoa, 19, says she’s typically seen Trump on TV and used to love him, however since he focused Lesotho with the tariffs she’s modified her thoughts.
She appeals to his transactional-style of politics, saying if she might communicate to the U.S. chief, she’d say: “President Trump, if solely you knew how many people depend upon America…can we provide him one thing to cease no matter he is doing?”
Her buddy and fellow tuckshop employee Mapaseka Mohale says merely that she’d inform Trump: “We’re going to die, as a result of we do not have meals, we rely on factories.”
‘Brief time’ and Trump shirts
In one other Maseru district, Valuable Clothes – which produces Trump-branded golf shirts – is among the many factories nonetheless working, although it is not clear for a way for much longer. Staff have been advised it too might fold in September.
Tuckshop employees Ntsoaki Neqoa, middle, and Mapaseka Mohale, left joke with cobbler Tumelo Rakoti at a market close to the Levi’s Denims manufacturing facility in Maseru, Lesotho, on 15 July, 2025.
Kate Bartlett/NPR
cover caption
toggle caption
Kate Bartlett/NPR
It is the top of the day and throngs of girls chat and snort as they head for residence, some wrapped in conventional Lesotho blankets, their breath seen within the chilly winter air.
Maboitumelo Ramakatane, 48, has been stitching golf shirts at Valuable Clothes for 18 years. Does she know who wears them? After all, she says, the U.S. president.
She says she discovered the work exhausting at first, however has mastered it. “I do it completely,” she says beaming. “I am pleased with my work….It is supported my household. It is an achievement to me.”
Her kids have all graduated highschool now, she says, and he or she hopes they may have a greater life than she’s had. She would not like them to work on the manufacturing facility ground like she does, but when they obtained a managerial place, she says, that may be okay. However now Ramakatane is frightened in regards to the dreaded “quick time.”
That is what employees right here name being placed on part-time work. Since Trump’s tariffs announcement, Ramakatane is already solely working two weeks out of each month and incomes half her wage – about $80 a month now.
She additionally notes that many ladies working within the factories have HIV – in a rustic with excessive charges of an infection. The US authorities via USAID have been supplying the nation with anti-retrovirals.
There was once numerous tents arrange close to the factories, the place employees might go to get examined and get entry to different providers like contraceptives. One, with Pepfar signage outdoors, remains to be working however the native NGO employee inside, who does not wish to be named for worry of dropping his job, tells NPR all of the nurses had been despatched residence after Trump’s USAID cuts. Now all he can do is give out self-testing kits for HIV. There are not any contraceptives anymore, or HIV-prevention injections generally known as PrEP, he says.
Ramakatane is frightened folks might die: from lack of work, starvation, or HIV. And if she loses her job solely, Ramakatane says, she does not know what she’ll do.
“We’re on our knees, we’re on our knees…now our hope is just to God, to alter Donald Trump’s thoughts,” she says.
