Baffled Lesotho seeks to engage with US on 'shocking' tariffs

MASERU, April 4 (Reuters) - Lesotho scrambled to put together a delegation on Friday to head to Washington to engage with the United States on tariffs that risk wiping out nearly half of its exports, its trade minister said, in what could be a death blow to its economy.

The 50% reciprocal trade tariff on the tiny southern African mountain kingdom was the highest levy on U.S. President Donald Trump's list of target economies.

"The latest policy direction undertaken by the United States is shocking ... as (it) ... has been a very important market for Lesotho," Trade Minister Mokhethi Shelile told parliament on Friday, adding that the 45% of exports went to the United States.

He said that officials had already engaged the U.S. embassy "to clarify and how, why Lesotho was included in the list of ... such high reciprocal tariffs".

Trump on Wednesday hit America's global trading partners with tariffs, upending decades of rules-based trade that campaigners have long said is exceptionally favourable to rich countries like the United States.

Lesotho's exports to the United States, mostly textiles for popular brands such as Levis, added up to $237 million in 2024 and account for more than a tenth of its GDP.

"Lesotho is also assembling a high-level delegation to the United States to try to maintain the current market dispensation," Shelile said.

In the medium term, he said, the kingdom would "increase efforts to export to alternative markets such as the European Union and the Africa free continental trade area".

Encircled by a South African mountain range, the kingdom of 2 million people is one of the world's poorest countries, with GDP per capita of $916 in 2023, according to World Bank figures. (Reporting by Marafaele Mohloboli in Maseru Additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Barbara Lewis)