Are Trump’s tariffs destroying lives and livelihoods in Lesotho?

0:00Hello, Ed Conway here. Here is what might sound like a slightly random question. What do AirPods, bananas and a pair of shoddily made running trainers from the 1970s have in common? On the surface, not very much. But on my podcast, Stuff Matters, I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them. You will see how together they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in. The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now. Just search for it on your podcast app and follow. Coming up on The Daily, the real-world consequences of Donald Trump's tariffs and aid cuts. The lives and livelihoods being lost in Lesotho in Southern Africa.

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1:28You will see how together they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in. The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now. Just search for it on your podcast app and follow. It was all a bit of a laugh. Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by gleeful supporters, holding up a giant scorecard showing the trade tariffs the US was going to charge every country, like some sort of game show. Amongst the hardest hit was the small southern African kingdom of Lesotho, slapped with tariffs of up to 50%, despite Trump's jokes. $8 million to promote LGBTQI plus in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.

2:18Well, it's not so funny now. Although those threatened tariffs were put on hold until August, they are already having a devastating effect. And it's not just the economic impact. Another of Trump's first acts in office was to strip back US aid. And in a country with one of the highest HIV rates in the world, that means people are dying as a direct result of the president's policy. Our Africa correspondent Yusra El Baga has been to Lesotho to see the damage being done firsthand.

2:51Yousra Elbagir:It's a very small country of around 2.3 million people. It's landlocked by South Africa. It's one of the smaller sovereign enclaves in the world, like the Vatican. It's a mountain kingdom and it is beautiful. A large part of the country is rural. and one of the iconic images is of the Basutu wrapped in their traditional blanket, shepherding sheep and cows and on horses. And they're known to be extremely warm and kind and friendly. And that is what we found when we went there. They were just so lovely, even in this time of crisis. What is also true about Lesotho is though it's rural, its capital, Siti Masiru, revolves around the textile industries.

3:35Yousra Elbagir:It's known as the denim capital of Africa. And it really benefited from a duty-free trade agreement with the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which gave several African countries that opportunity to export goods to America and get access to that huge market. So this textile industry that employs thousands of garment workers, most of them women and breadwinners, is now completely in crisis. How many jobs are we talking about here? There's 12 ,900 direct jobs in factories that have been cut by the threat of U.S. tariffs. There are also thousands more jobs around the textile industry that will be impacted.

4:21Yousra Elbagir:And it's not just economic industrial impact. It's also the fact that U.S. aid has been cut. And Lesotho has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world. And now thousands of people won't have access to antiretroviral treatment. And we've already seen people die and they're devastated. Two huge decisions made by Donald Trump impacting the lives of people in Lesotho. Let's focus in on the textile industry. You've been there and you've spoken to some of those affected. And I think the word devastating is one that you use in your reporting. You've spoken to them. What have they told you about the direct impact on their lives?

5:03Yousra Elbagir:They're at a loss. They don't know what to do. They don't know when work might come back, when they'll be hired again. One of the women, a mother of two who spoke to us, didn't want to appear on camera. And she was so terrified that she'd even be reprimanded or face retribution for speaking out against the factory owners who didn't even explain to her why her job had been cut off. Trade unionists have been trying to explain to people what the context is, and they've told them about the threat of tariffs and told them that now Lesotho is entering this new era of having to manage taxation, essentially, on goods that they had never been taxed to export.

5:43Yousra Elbagir:And they still are feeling just complete surprise and shock and helplessness. Trade unionists told us that people don't care about the politics. They just want jobs. They just want to be able to feed their families. They pay school fees. Primary school education is free in Lesotho, but secondary school and onwards, they have to pay for their kids to go to school. They have to be able to put food on the table. And a lot of the women that we spoke to have never experienced this before. The textile industry was such a solid bet. And for that to suddenly be ripped away has been terrible. One of the women we spoke to is 50.

6:24Yousra Elbagir:And she said this is the time in her life where she was hoping to wind down, was hoping to kind of move slowly towards retirement. But she doesn't know if she'll be able to do that now that she has to work extremely hard to meet quotas, to get the money to save up for her to live comfortably. And she had a message for America. Please, Ndadi Trump, we are begging you. please that we are begging you have mercy on the food because everything comes from America our medication our jobs everything comes from America America is our hope if there's no help from America we are dying it's worth reminding people what kind of tariffs Lesotho is looking at because the United States negotiating with all nations on tariffs and they can be as low as 10%.

7:16They can be over 100 % in some cases when you hear Donald Trump speaking about individual nations at his various press conferences. What is Lesotho facing? And as America is so central to their industry, do they have other options like other African countries, South Africa, for example?

7:34Yousra Elbagir:So they're facing anything from 10 % to 50%. So they're hoping for 10 % and dreading slash preparing for 50%. But any tariff, anything over zero is going to impact the industry because they've benefited from a duty free trade agreement with the U.S. through AGOA for so long. South Africa is being kind of positioned by the government as an alternative, as their neighboring market, as what they've always been able to do is they've been surrounded by South Africa and loads of Basutu are working in South Africa as we speak. But we spoke to an economist who said that that is just absurd. How can Lesotho be looking at South Africa as a solution when South Africa itself is facing tariffs?

8:23Yousra Elbagir:Everyone is just holding their breath. They don't know what to expect. And it's just this hope and dread and anticipation to see what President Trump will come out with as a permanent tariff. It's going to be very, very difficult for the people of Lesotho and for South Africa. And when your neighbour, who is the most industrialised economy in Africa, the whole of Africa, doesn't even know what lies ahead, then that is a cause for worry and concern. Tell us more about the other big decision directly affecting Lesotho made by President Trump, the cuts to US aid. How many people are being affected in Lesotho?

9:06Yousra Elbagir:It's anything from 100 ,000 to 300 ,000. We went to one clinic where they have had to cut off 500 people from outreach programs where they were delivering antiretroviral treatment, HIV treatment to people in remote areas. So 500 people in that clinic will no longer get access to treatment. The field teams that were working with them to deliver that treatment were relying on USAID funding and those people are now effectively unemployed. We also know of a project that was meant to deliver antiretroviral treatment to 120 ,000 people that has been completely seized, that won't come into play. So we're looking at tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who will not be able to access life-saving HIV medicine.

9:57Yousra Elbagir:And these are people who are facing poverty, who are also impacted by job cuts in the textile industry. So it is a compounded effect economically, socially, everything is kind of collapsing around people at the moment. And the PREP-FAR scheme was started by George Bush in the early 2000s to help Southern African countries combat the HIV crisis. And it worked. There is a lot of people in Southern Africa who are HIV positive, but their condition has been managed. They've been able to manage HIV and we haven't had so many fatalities as there were in the AIDS crisis of the early 2000s. For that to be ripped away is terrifying because Lesotho does not have the infrastructure to be able to offer the support needed to manage HIV.

10:52Yousra Elbagir:And so going to the clinic and seeing the nurse express the sadness and tell us that she knows of people who have died from a disease that is preventable and treatable is really, really painful for the people who are treating HIV patients. Yusra, those you spoke to at the clinics, what did they say about the potential consequences this will have for HIV and AIDS in the region? They're scared. They're very scared. They are concerned about the trend that they're seeing. The one centre that we went to, and this is one of a few centres that operate in Masutu, had 15 people die this year already. And it doesn't sound like much to us, but for them, they lost seven people last year.

11:42Yousra Elbagir:So for them to lose double the number of patients in only half the time since Donald Trump came into power means that they're looking at triple the number of people dying by the end of the year. So they're very concerned. They're concerned about the spread, but they're also concerned about their shrinking ability to treat people who've already contracted HIV. And that's where I think numbers don't really show the scale of the problem, because we're concerned about the trends, not just that, oh, it's only 15 people and who cares. And I think ultimately even one life lost is enough. But there is this fallacy in the US that US aid cuts aren't killing people.

12:19Yousra Elbagir:And if just one center in one small country in southern Africa has experienced death directly from US aid cuts, then what's happening across the continent and the world? Yusra, what is the fear for Lesotho? Because what you're describing there are two huge impacts on the economy and health. A perfect storm, if you like, for society there. unlike somewhere like the UK, it doesn't have a benefit system. It doesn't have an NHS. It just doesn't have that infrastructure. Without the support from the United States, what happens to this country? Well, they've told us that without support from the US, they are dying.

13:06Yousra Elbagir:It's terrifying for the people of Lesotho. They're dealing with direct death from US aid cuts. and then they're also dealing with the fact that their trade is collapsing and that their options are limited because the biggest, most developed country that they're closest to is also dealing with the same problem at even a larger scale. There's fear and there's worry, but there's also a sense of hope. I mean, the factory owner we spoke to said that he feels like they will get back on their feet. He's had to lay off 500 people. And he's directly seen how that has impacted the lives of his employees.

13:48Yousra Elbagir:And he himself is extremely sad that that is happening. But they have no option but to try and get through the next period. I think in terms of what they can do, they will have to look more towards Taiwan. There are loads of Taiwanese factories in Lesotho that we're exporting to the U.S. and other markets, but they're going to have to look to Russia, to China, to other markets that the U.S. has been competing with in Africa since the Cold War. And that is the result of what the U.S. is doing, that countries will turn to China for support, will turn to Russia for support when the U.S. has ripped that support away so abruptly.

14:32Yousra Elbagir:There can be blame attributed for there being such a dependency on the U.S., but that is what the U.S. sought to nurture in Africa. They rolled out these programs to foster goodwill in African countries and ultimately to expand soft power on the continent. So that dependency has been actively fostered by the US. And to rip it away and act like people should not be reliant on the US for anything is so shocking to people who've never thought that that would be a possibility. Yusra, you talk about hope from the people that you have spoken to in Lesotho about their situation and you've spoken to government ministers.

15:12Is there any sense from them that Donald Trump is listening, is willing to look and understand the effects of his decisions on the people of Lesotho?

15:24Yousra Elbagir:The trade minister said that he thinks that he's a politician and that he is appealing to his base, but that increasingly his base are also showing discontent that they're not happy with some of his policies. I think they're relying on fractures in MAGA to undermine President Trump's approach to Africa and how disastrous it's been. That's on a government level. You know, on a social level, I asked a factory worker what she has heard of Trump, and the fear was palpable. I said, are people scared of Trump? And she said, too much. We are scared of him. He, she said he's a man of his word. He says things and then he does them.

16:05Yousra Elbagir:And that she's seen from how he's approached South Africa and China that he doesn't want to work with other countries. They see him as quite a terrifying character, like a dictator, that they are now being completely engulfed by, that his whims are going to change their lives. And I think that the government is holding out hope that he'll renege because he sees that there is an interest in maintaining some sort of relationship so that he can have something to leverage internally with his own base. But ultimately, that looks like a 10 % tariff as opposed to a 50 % or 100 % tariff. And even 10 % is going to impact the lives of people on Lesotho.

16:53Yousra Elbagir:Yusra, thanks so much. You can see Yusra's special report from Lesotho on the Sky News website and on the app. And if you like this story, you can listen to Eustra's last investigation into how the deadly drug Cush is wreaking havoc in West Africa and why there's a link to the UK. Details of that are in the episode description. Thanks for listening. The Sky News Daily is back tomorrow.

17:29very much. But on my podcast, Stuff Matters, I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them. You will see how together they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in. The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now. Just search for it on your podcast app and follow.