Lesotho puzzled by whopping U.S. tariff rate, which could decimate its economy [Video]

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 per cent 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,” Trade Minister Mokhethi Shelile told parliament on Friday, adding that 45 per cent of its 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 …