The country that President Donald Trump declared “nobody’s ever heard of” during his 4 March address to Congress has been hit with the highest U.S. tariffs in the world. Lesotho tops the list of 20 African nations upon which the White House has announced what it calls “reciprocal” tariffs, which add to the baseline imposed on every country.
The executive order Trump signed yesterday lists levies applied to African nations, showing the worst-affected, after Lesotho’s 50 percent, are Madagascar – 47 percent; Mauritius – 40 percent; Botswana – 38 percent; Angola – 32 percent; Libya – 31 percent; and South Africa – 31 percent.
Trump announced an across-the-board additional tariff of 10 percent on most goods imported into the U.S. from Saturday, with some exceptions – the main ones being steel and aluminium articles, cars and parts already subject to certain tariffs. copper, pharmaceuticals, semi-conductors, lumber articles, bullion, energy and certain minerals not available in the United States.
The higher tariffs for 20 African nations, as well as for many other countries across the world, come into effect on Wednesday April 9.
Other African countries being levied tariffs in excess of 10 percent are:
Algeria, 30 percent; Tunisia, 28 percent; Namibia and Cote d’Ivoire, 21 percent; Zimbabwe 18 percent; Malawi and Zambia, 17 percent; Mozambique 16 percent; Nigeria, 14 percent, Chad and Equatorial Guinea, 13 percent; Cameroon, 12 percent, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 11 percent.
The White House said the highest tariffs are being imposed on the countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficits, with the aim of boosting American manufacturing, jobs and economic security.
It claimed that “for generations, countries have taken advantage of the United States”. In one example it contended: “For decades, South Africa has imposed animal health restrictions that are not scientifically justified on U.S. pork products, permitting a very limited list of U.S. pork exports to enter South Africa.
“South Africa also heavily restricts U.S. poultry exports through high tariffs, anti-dumping duties, and unjustified animal health restrictions. These barriers have contributed to a 78% decline in U.S. poultry exports to South Africa, from $89 million in 2019 to $19 million 2024.”
Retaliation for “health restrictions” is not limited to Africa.
For example, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick complained yesterday that the “European Union won’t take chicken from America…They hate our beef, because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak” – a comment that inspired a predictable spate of caricatures and jokes on social media. The European Union has barred imports of U.S. beef under a 1989 health regulation that banned the use of growth hormones in the EU.
The president threatened to impose even higher tariffs if trading partners retaliate with higher tariffs on imports from the U.S.
He said the level of the new tariffs is being set at half the rate levied on American imports by the nations concerned. But the administration’s calculations of these rates have been contested in the British media.
Listing the White House claims of tariffs charged by trading partners, The Guardian included a caveat, saying they were “Trump-defined”, included U.S. assessments of “currency manipulation and trade barriers” and “so don’t necessarily align with the tariffs published by countries concerned.”
The Sky News U.S. correspondent, Mark Stone, said the calculations were made “by very questionable White House arithmetic” and a claim that Lesotho levied U.S. imports at 99 percent was a “wild claim”.
“In fact, it’s part of a southern African trade pact with other nations which have been levied at lower levels. Lesotho’s textile industry is heavily reliant on U.S. exports. It’s a country where 56.2 percent of the population lives on less than $3.65 a day, according to the World Bank. You don’t need to ‘do the maths’ to see the impact.”
Stone added: “Nearly half of Lesotho’s exports are diamonds. Trump’s driver for all this is to bring manufacturing back home. Is his sledgehammer on Lesotho going to conjure up a diamond industry in Pennsylvania?”
Tami Hultman contributed to this report.
