JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The Trump administration's tariffs loom large over consumers here in the U.S. But in other countries, the tariff threats are having immediate impacts. Lesotho, the tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa, has just declared a two-year state of disaster after being threatened with the highest U.S. tariffs in the world. While those 50% tariffs announced back in April are still on hold, the damage has already taken a huge toll. Lesotho's economy, which is heavily reliant on garment exports to the U.S., is unraveling. The factories are shuttering, and thousands of workers there have already lost their jobs. Kate Bartlett is reporting from the capital Maseru and joins us now. Hi, Kate.
KATE BARTLETT, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: Kate, start, if you can, by just reminding us why President Trump announced these massive tariffs on Lesotho to begin with.
BARTLETT: Well, Lesotho's been dubbed the denim capital of Africa, and it produces a quintessential American garment, Levi jeans, for the U.S. market. It also produces the golf shirts Trump himself wears. Now, the country achieved success in this industry with help from a key U.S. policy of 25 years, which allowed some countries tariff-free access to the U.S. market. But now its government has officially declared a state of disaster for the next two years to try and help fast-track the creation of jobs. Trump complains there's a trade imbalance between the two countries, something Lesotho's trade minister Mokhethi Shelile confirmed to me.
MOKHETHI SHELILE: We are the least developed country in sub-Saharan Africa. We are just too small to be able to afford everything that the U.S. can produce and bring here.
BARTLETT: The minister told me that immediately after the tariffs announcement, U.S. buyers got spooked and stopped ordering from Lesotho's factories. He told me about 40,000 jobs stand to be lost in a country of 2 million people.
SUMMERS: Kate, people there in Lesotho, how are they coping with so much economic turmoil and uncertainty?
BARTLETT: Every morning here, I've been outside talking to the throngs of women gathered outside the factories still operating, looking for work, and they're increasingly desperate. A group of these women approached me one morning and they wanted to know why America was doing this. They said they were hungry and asked for food. Maqajela Hlaatsane is 54. She told me she's been working in the factories for 24 years and raised her children with the money she's earned - about $35 a week they make. Ironically, like most people in Lesotho, she can't afford to buy the Levis she makes. Like others, she gets them back secondhand. And now she's just been laid off - a casualty of this year's policy.
MAQAJELA HLAATSANE: (Non-English language spoken).
BARTLETT: She tells me her factory has closed down. Every day she searches for work. She's been trying to trick herself into feeling full by drinking lots of water.
SUMMERS: And Kate, I mean, it certainly seems difficult. These workers that you've been speaking with, what did they tell you they'd like to say to the Trump administration?
BARTLETT: Well, Juana, you might remember back in March, Trump was defending his USAID cuts, and he said that some money was going to Lesotho, and, quote, "no one knows where Lesotho is." But while he might not have heard of Lesotho, people here have certainly heard of him. And the garment workers I interviewed mentioned his name unprompted again and again. Thato Mohase, a 45-year-old garment worker, was laid off in May. He has four hungry children at home.
THATO MOHASE: People always talking about the Trump, saying Trump he said this and that, this and that. So we don't know what's happening.
BARTLETT: What would you like to tell him?
MOHASE: I want to tell him that, oh, Trump, could you please make the things easy?
BARTLETT: He says he hopes America will take orders again and save Lesotho's factories because people here just can't live without them.
SUMMERS: Kate Bartlett reporting from Maseru, thank you so much.
BARTLETT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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