Feb 5 (Reuters) – Since she was laid off in October, after Lesotho lost tariff-free access to its vital U.S. garments market, Matokelo Masenkane has got up early each morning to queue at the textile factory gates in search of casual work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n She rarely finds any.<\/p>\n
\n “It is even more painful taking the already little food from the house to eat while you queue, when you could have … shared it with your kids,” the 36-year-old mother of three said.<\/p>\n
\n Lesotho, which has benefited from a longstanding preferential trade deal with the U.S., was at risk of losing this protection when the agreement – the African Growth and Opportunity Act – expired in September.<\/p>\n
\n U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an extension of AGOA, first enacted in 2000, through to December 31, 2026.<\/p>\n
\n The extension ended months of uncertainty over the programme, amid punishing tariffs imposed on countries across the world by Trump on “liberation day,” on April 2. <\/p>\n
\n The expiry of AGOA, introduced to provide duty-free access to the U.S. market for eligible Sub-Saharan African countries covering more than 1,800 products, had put hundreds of thousands of African jobs at risk. <\/p>\n
\n For Lesotho, Africa’s most U.S.-dependent exporter, it was a relief, though it merely kicked the uncertainty down the road.<\/p>\n
\n “I’m optimistic that we will get something long term,” Lesotho’s Trade Minister Mokhethi Shelile told Reuters in an interview at his office. “The one-year extension … is not a conducive timeline for our businesses.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n The textile industry is Lesotho’s leading export sector. Textile exports to the U.S. under AGOA have made up about a tenth of the country’s around $2 billion gross domestic product. <\/p>\n
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In April, Lesotho initially got hit with Trump’s highest 50% tariff, but it was later reduced to 15% – still tough for a country dependent on U.S. consumers buying its clothes. <\/p>\n
\n U.S. goods and services trade with Lesotho totalled $276 million in 2024.<\/p>\n
\n “We have to start working now to have the U.S. provide us with a framework of a proper trade policy for Africa,” Shelile said.<\/p>\n
(Writing by Tim Cocks. Editing by Jane Merriman)<\/p>\n
\n By Marafaele Mohloboli<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb 5 (Reuters) – Since she was laid off in October, after Lesotho lost tariff-free access to its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,123],"class_list":["post-283122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}