Lesotho: In the country that Trump claims ‘nobody has ever heard of’, his name evokes fear and panic
A blanket of thick fog covers Lesotho’s capital, Maseru.
Winter in the southern African country feels colder than ever.
Thousands of garment workers have lost their jobs as the threat of US tariffs brings the textile industry to the edge.
Hundreds of thousands have been cut off from critical healthcare after the USAID withdrawal. Unemployed women stand outside the locked gates of factories asking for work.
HIV-positive mothers travel long distances to clinics for a limited supply of life-saving medicine, holding their babies wrapped in blankets.
Lives and livelihoods in Lesotho have been devastated by US President Donald Trump – a country he has said “nobody has ever heard of”.
The Basotho have certainly heard of President Trump. His name now evokes fear, worry and panic among many in the small nation his policies have targeted.
“People are scared of him, too much. When he says he will do something then he must do it,” says Maplape Makhele, a 32-year-old garment worker and mother of two.
“I have seen what he has done in South Africa and China. He doesn’t want to work with other countries.”
We spoke to Mpalape at her work station in the Afri-Expo Textiles factory while she sewed denim. This work was steady while Lesotho held the title of the “denim capital of Africa”.
Today, she is terrified of losing her job as the breadwinner of her family. More than 200 of her colleagues have already been laid off from the factory.
“We are close to only half operational,” says her boss Teboho Kobeli, the managing director of Afri-Expo Textiles Factories. He has cut around 500 jobs across three factories.
“We had been doing some US orders but now we have had to re-adjust ourselves,” he says. “There are a lot of job losses and I can see more jobs lost as of next month.”
Lesotho has declared a state of national disaster over high youth unemployment and job losses linked to US tariffs and aid cuts that will last until June 2027.
President Trump is expected to finalise tariffs on several countries including Lesotho and South Africa on August 1. In Lesotho, people are hoping for tariffs on the lower end at 10% but are preparing for a hit as high as 50%.
Any export duties will have an impact on industry here which has benefitted from 25 years of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) duty-free trade agreement with the US.
“That is multilateralism – to trade with one another and leverage on each other’s strengths,” Lesotho’s minister of trade and industry Mokhethi Shelile tells us.
“We did not think an economy so advanced, the pioneer of multilateralism, to renege and turn back on that very principle that has made it so big.
“We are done talking [with the US]. We are waiting for a response, for a final solution from them. We are told it will come soon but we don’t know how soon.”
Mokhethi Shelile says ‘we are done talking’ with the US
We interviewed the minister at a celebration launching a government-sponsored factory expansion in Lesotho’s second city Maputsoe.
The factory is only 5km from the border gate into South Africa, its main export destination. Unemployed garment workers are huddled around the locked gates hoping to appeal to the trade minister for jobs.
Inside the warehouse, women furiously produced clothing for the South African market. Minister Shelile tells us that this regional trade is part of Lesotho’s solution but economists believe it is another dead end.
“I don’t think South Africa is an option for us given the problems that South Africa is going through itself,” says economist and former minister of mining Lebohang Thotanyana.
“South Africa has been hit by tariffs and is going to lose around half a million jobs as a result of the Trump effect.
“Some of those jobs on the citrus farms and automobile industry in South Africa were held by Basotho so it means they will be directly affected there as well.”
Read more from Yousra Elbagir:
White South African farmer elated Trump grilled his president
How the drug kush is ruining lives
Sky reporter returns to family home left in ruins by Sudan war
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Trade unionists in Lesotho’s capital Maseru have been speaking to laid off workers to explain the context of the devastating job cuts.
“It’s really hard for them because what the people want is the job,” says Ts’epang Nyaka-Nyaka, general secretary of the Economic Freedom Trade Union.
He is expecting his own wife to potentially lose her job at a factory exporting to American denim brand Levis. The two-thousand-member union is rapidly shrinking as more lay-offs are announced.
“They want the job – not the politics,” he says.
World
‘Better late than never’: Palestinian minister says UK recognition of state would be ‘courageous step’
Britain will be taking “a courageous step at a very difficult time” by officially recognising a Palestinian state, according to the authority’s foreign minister, who told Sky News she believes the announcement – expected in the coming days – will inspire more nations to follow suit.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Varsen Aghabekian, told me Britain’s move was “better late than never”, and said “Britain, with its weight, can influence other countries to come forward and recognise, because that is the right thing to do”.
But she also said she is “very angry” with the White House over its “unwavering support” for Israel, and said that Israel’s refusal to pass on tax revenue was pushing Palestinian civil society to the brink of “collapse”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Could recognition of Palestine change the West Bank?
Aghabekian was speaking as Britain, along with France, Canada and Australia, prepares to recognise the State of Palestine officially at the United Nations.
She told me: “Britain has been supporting the existence and the flourishing of Israel for some time, but I think today Britain is looking at the matter objectively, in terms of the right of people, in terms of complying with international law, and in terms of the future of this area for both the Israelis and Palestinians.”
She rejected the idea that recognising Palestine was a reward for Hamas terrorism, saying that “non-recognition” would also be a “reward to the extremists” and said that “if we wait until Israel decides it wants to go into negotiations with the Palestinians, then it won’t happen”.
Aghabekian told me she expected Gaza to be returned to the Palestinians, but I put it to her that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was being empowered by the diplomatic support he receives from America, and in particular, US President Donald Trump.
So is she angry with the White House? “Very angry, because I expect the White House and the United States of America to align with international law, with human rights, with having no double standards.
“This unwavering support for Israel, this blind support, is not only harming the Palestinians but also Israeli society.”
Read more:
What does recognising a Palestinian state mean?
Gaza could be ‘real estate bonanza’, Israeli minister says
Varsen Aghabekian speaks to Sky’s Adam Parsons
The state of Palestine is already recognised by three-quarters of the United Nations’ members. It comprises two separate territories – the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Together, they are officially known as the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The West Bank has been subject to Israeli military occupation since 1967, while Gaza has been attacked by Israel since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, when nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 250 people were taken hostage.
Since then, more than 65,000 people have been killed in Gaza as Israel has sought to destroy Hamas and recover its hostages. There are 48 hostages still in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive.
She confirmed to me that Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, “has given guarantees in letters to various leaders around the globe that said Hamas will not be part of the governance of the Gaza Strip” and insisted there was “probably a worldwide consensus” on the topic.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
How has UK responded to Israel-Gaza conflict?
But she also insisted it was “not reasonable” to talk of completely erasing Hamas: “Hamas is an ideology, not a building that you bring down. Hamas is in people’s minds; in their heads.
“Those who support Hamas need to see a future, need to see something that is moving on the political level, need to see that there might be a state in which their children and their grandchildren might prosper.
“What people see today, whether they are Hamas supporters or not, they see darkness and they see destruction all over. They see violation of rights. They are helpless and hopeless. People need to see things are moving forward, and once that happens, there will be a shift in the mood, and they will look for a better future.”
But just as the Palestinians prepare to welcome recognition, Aghabekian said the West Bank was facing financial collapse as Israel continues to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue that, under a 30-year-old agreement, it collects on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf.
Israel has retained a proportion of the money since the start of the war in Gaza, but, encouraged by finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, it has recently withheld a much higher amount.
“People have not been paid, civil servants are only receiving small parts of their salaries. We can’t buy medical supplies, equipment, you name it,” said Aghabekian.
“How can a government run a country under such conditions? So yes, we are very worried.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment12 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024