Lesotho, which Trump had ridiculed in March as a country "nobody has ever heard of", is a poor and landlocked country with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion.

It has a large trade surplus with the US, mostly made up of diamonds and textiles, including Levi's jeans.

Its exports to the US, which in 2024 totalled $237 million, account for more than 10% of GDP, Oxford Economics said.

Trump on Wednesday imposed sweeping new reciprocal tariffs on global trading partners, upending decades of rules-based trade and threatening cost increases for consumers.

Trump said the "reciprocal" tariffs were a response to duties and other non-tariff barriers put on US goods. Lesotho charges 99% tariffs on American goods, according to the US administration.

In Africa, the move signalled the end of the AGOA trade deal that was supposed to help African economies develop through preferential access to US markets, trade experts said.

It also compounded the pain after Trump's administration dismantled USAID, the government agency that was a major supplier of aid to the continent.

The government of Lesotho, a mountainous nation of about 2 million people that is encircled by South Africa, had no immediate comment on the trade tariffs on Thursday.

--Reuters--