US President Donald Trump imposed a 50% reciprocal tariff on the tiny southern African mountain kingdom of Lesotho, the highest levy for any sovereign nation.
Trump announced Wednesday he’ll apply at least a 10% tariff on all imports, with even higher duties on some 60 nations, to counter large trade imbalances with the US. Lesotho charges 99% tariffs on American goods, according to the Trump administration.
Lesotho, bordered on all sides by South Africa, exported $264 million more to the US than it imported in 2022. The nation sells diamonds and apparel to the world’s biggest economy, according to data compiled by the Tralac Trade Law Centre, based in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town. The $2.1 billion economy is dependent on South Africa for 85% of its imports.
Lesotho Trade Ministry spokeswoman Mantletse Maile said she couldn’t immediately comment when contacted on Thursday.
The US calculated the rates based on a formula that divides a country’s trade surplus with America by its total exports, based on data from the US Census Bureau for 2024. And then that number was divided by two, producing the “discounted” rate.
That method meant Lesotho and Madagascar, among the world’s poorest countries, were hit with a rate of 50% and 47% respectively.
It’s the second time in a month that Trump has taken aim at Lesotho. In a speech to Congress in March, he directly referenced the kingdom when he questioned why the US was providing $8 million of aid to promote LGBTQI+ rights in a country that “nobody has ever heard of.”
The nation imported $8 million of US products in 2022, according to the Tralac data. About 70% of Lesotho’s exports benefit from duty-free access to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
The only other territory to attract a 50% reciprocal tariff was Saint Pierre and Miquelon — a French archipelago off the coast of Canada.
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