AGOA extension lifeline for Lesotho garment industry

Lesotho’s textile and apparel sector, which is regarded as the country’s largest private employer has been handed fresh certainty after the United States (US) extended the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) by two years, preserving duty-free access to the American market until 31 December 2028.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Business Development (MTIBD) confirmed this week that the extension took effect after US President Donald Trump signed H.R. 6500, the AGOA Extension Act, into law on 2 September 2026.

As the Ministry noted in its statement, that expiry, on 24 July 2026, restored duty-free treatment for Lesotho’s textiles, apparel and fisheries products even before this latest, more durable AGOA extension was signed into law.

“As per the Ministry`s communication in August 2026, since the expiry of the Section 122 tariff lines on 24th July 2026, exports from Lesotho can enter the United States market duty free and under current dispensations this will continue until December 2028,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Effectively this implies that textiles and apparel and Fisheries products that are exported from Lesotho enjoy duty free access to the United States market until 2028,” it added.

The ministry said the two-year window is not the end goal. The Ministry has confirmed it will continue engaging Washington directly, and through the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), in pursuit of deeper trade integration and, ultimately permanent, rather than periodically renewed, market access for Lesotho’s exports.

The timing for Lesotho could not have been more critical as the textile sector, had already been battered earlier this year by US tariffs that peaked at 50 percent in April before being lowered to 15 percent in July, hitting an industry that had built its competitiveness on duty-free AGOA access.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had warned that the tariff shock threatened roughly 30,000 jobs, mostly held by women, in a sector where garments account for about 80 percent of Lesotho’s exports to the US.

Some relief had already arrived in late July, when a separate, unrelated set of emergency tariffs lapsed. Those tariffs had been imposed in February 2026 under a balance-of-payments provision of US trade law after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s original “reciprocal” tariff programme, and expired automatically after Congress declined to extend the underlying authority.

As the Ministry noted in its statement, that expiry, on 24 July 2026, restored duty-free treatment for Lesotho’s textiles, apparel and fisheries products even before this latest, more durable AGOA extension was signed into law.

Government officials had spent much of the year warning of the stakes involved. Former Trade Minister Mokhethi Shelile previously told parliament that a lapse in AGOA would expose Lesotho’s exports to combined Most Favoured Nation and reciprocal tariffs exceeding 30 percent, warning that eleven textile factories and around 12,000 direct jobs were at risk, with ripple effects reaching truck drivers, taxi operators, landlords and domestic workers.

Trade unions echoed those concerns throughout the year, with hundreds of workers marching in Maseru in recent months to press government and Washington for a resolution.

AGOA, first enacted in 2000, has for 25 years allowed 32 eligible sub-Saharan African countries to export more than 1,800 products duty-free to the US, alongside more than 5,000 additional goods covered by the Generalised System of Preferences.

The AGOA Extension Act, sponsored by US Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, also preserves key apparel provisions, including the regional apparel and third-country fabric rules, through 2028,  a detail with particular significance for Lesotho, whose garment factories rely on imported fabric to assemble clothing for export.

Regional peers have welcomed the same extension. Kenya’s government, for instance, has said the additional window gives its manufacturers room to expand into new product categories rather than relying solely on apparel.

Seabata Mahao

Seabata Mahao is a general news reporter with special focus on Business and Sports. Started working at Newsday in 2021. Working in a team with a shared goal is what I enjoy most and that gives me the motivation to work under any environment leading to growth.