4 ms·

I feel bad for Lesotho- 50% is tough.

by klooney 2y ago

walkingthisquai 2y ago
Well you've got to get those diamond manufacturing jobs back to the US somehow
- tetrisgm 2y ago
  That is a brilliant joke
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 2y ago
    Good one
- baxtr 2y ago
  Askshually… I thought it was possible nowadays to manufacture diamonds?!
- usrusr 2y ago
  Unfortunately, now that some people appear to think that annexations are something to be considered, this joke has a very unexpected element of not funny.
  - oblio 2y ago
    Lesotho is a landlocked enclave. The US would have to chew through South Africa, first. Also, would MAGA want a new US state from Africa?
theGeatZhopa 2y ago
make lesotho great again!
thih9 2y ago
Does anyone here know what is the impact of this for Lesotho in practice? I found an article[1] but perhaps someone here knows more or is there in person. > Lesotho exported $237m of goods last year to the US and imported $2.8m. Agoa[2], which has allowed tariff-free access to the US market for thousands of product types since 2000, created a thriving garment industry, accounting for about 20% of GDP. > There are about 30,000 garment workers in Lesotho, mostly women, with 12,000 making clothes for US brands including Levi’s, Calvin Klein and Walmart in Chinese- and Taiwanese-owned factories. > “(…) If we lose our jobs here, I’m almost certain that many of us will end up sleeping on empty stomachs.” [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/apr/04/lesotho-garment-workers-reel-trump-tariffs https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/apr/04/l... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Growth_and_Opportunity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Growth_and_Opportunity...
- colechristensen 2y ago
  I want the people who work to make the things I use to earn more than $150 per month. A sane tariff policy would be set up to penalize these very low wage exporters to give competitive advantage to exporters and local producers with higher wages but also to incentivize higher wages in a way that set rates make producers more profitable if they paid workers more (and likewise other human development and environmental etc issues)
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    Well, this gets closer. There used to be a garment industry in the USA...
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > There used to be a garment industry in the USA... Yeah, but the last large piece of it (there are still some amall remnants) got wiped out with the most recent push for eliminating large scale non-penal slavery in the US. And, no, I don’t mean abolishing formal chattel slavery with the 13th Amendment, I mean the push to eliminate the informal de facto slavery that persisted in the US territory of the Confederation of the Northern Mariana Islands around the turn of the millenium.
tdb7893 2y ago
Yeah, it sucks and I bet these countries won't forget this for a very long time.

I feel bad for Lesotho- 50% is tough.

walkingthisquai 2y ago

Well you've got to get those diamond manufacturing jobs back to the US somehow

tetrisgm 2y ago
That is a brilliant joke
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 2y ago
  Good one
baxtr 2y ago
Askshually… I thought it was possible nowadays to manufacture diamonds?!
usrusr 2y ago
Unfortunately, now that some people appear to think that annexations are something to be considered, this joke has a very unexpected element of not funny.
- oblio 2y ago
  Lesotho is a landlocked enclave. The US would have to chew through South Africa, first. Also, would MAGA want a new US state from Africa?

theGeatZhopa 2y ago

make lesotho great again!

thih9 2y ago

Does anyone here know what is the impact of this for Lesotho in practice? I found an article[1] but perhaps someone here knows more or is there in person. > Lesotho exported $237m of goods last year to the US and imported $2.8m. Agoa[2], which has allowed tariff-free access to the US market for thousands of product types since 2000, created a thriving garment industry, accounting for about 20% of GDP. > There are about 30,000 garment workers in Lesotho, mostly women, with 12,000 making clothes for US brands including Levi’s, Calvin Klein and Walmart in Chinese- and Taiwanese-owned factories. > “(…) If we lose our jobs here, I’m almost certain that many of us will end up sleeping on empty stomachs.” [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/apr/04/lesotho-garment-workers-reel-trump-tariffs https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/apr/04/l... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Growth_and_Opportunity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Growth_and_Opportunity...

colechristensen 2y ago
I want the people who work to make the things I use to earn more than $150 per month. A sane tariff policy would be set up to penalize these very low wage exporters to give competitive advantage to exporters and local producers with higher wages but also to incentivize higher wages in a way that set rates make producers more profitable if they paid workers more (and likewise other human development and environmental etc issues)
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Well, this gets closer. There used to be a garment industry in the USA...
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > There used to be a garment industry in the USA... Yeah, but the last large piece of it (there are still some amall remnants) got wiped out with the most recent push for eliminating large scale non-penal slavery in the US. And, no, I don’t mean abolishing formal chattel slavery with the 13th Amendment, I mean the push to eliminate the informal de facto slavery that persisted in the US territory of the Confederation of the Northern Mariana Islands around the turn of the millenium.

tdb7893 2y ago

Yeah, it sucks and I bet these countries won't forget this for a very long time.