Trump’s tariffs are starting to have an actual impression on poor international locations

[ad_1] Within the coronary heart of southern India’s centuries-old textile business, tens of thousands and thousands of garment staff spin cotton fibers into yarn every year.

They then dye massive swaths of that yarn a dusty indigo hue earlier than weaving it right into a denim material that can finally be minimize and sewn into your favourite pair of light-washed low-rise denims. They’re the sort that slot in that specific means in order that you can also seem like a member of the woman group Katseye , decked out in Hole denim at a value of $90 apiece. Made in India.

However after President Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariff on Indian items went into impact this August, these $90 denims successfully now must pay a $45 toll simply to get into the US.

That's, if India — the world’s second-largest textile producer — will get to make them in any respect.

The export-heavy factories as soon as bustling throughout the nation’s textile belt have all however come to a standstill since tariffs took maintain. Garment staff have been rationing their shifts. And suicide charges are rising among the many cotton farmers who provide the factories with uncooked supplies — consequently, hundreds of farmers have taken to the streets to protest their authorities’s tariff response.

Trump’s slate of double-digit export charges has battered world provide chains throughout a map that appears to be all however gerrymandered towards the worldwide poor. The tariffs aren’t simply going to boost costs in your favourite Hole denims, Nike sneakers, or Costco Lululemon dupes — they're additionally poised to threaten many years of progress in international locations the place exports have collectively lifted tons of of thousands and thousands of individuals out of poverty in current many years.

“Trump has mainly blown up all the guidelines of the sport,” mentioned Jayati Ghosh , a growth economist and professor on the College of Massachusetts Amherst. Not that these guidelines had been particularly reasonable to start with, she mentioned, however “having some guidelines is best than having no guidelines, the place the large bully can come and beat you up within the playground.”

There are thousands and thousands of individuals whose capacity to feed their households and ship their youngsters to high school is determined by the customarily meager wages they earn stuffing your Labubus and even assembling your Mercedes-Benz . And in locations the place world commerce has been a serious driver of financial progress, these tariffs may reverse many years of considerable however usually fragile progress.

For many years after gaining independence in 1947, India largely stored to itself when it got here to world commerce. For a lot of the bell-bottomed denims period, its exports hovered round simply 5 percent of its GDP.

Then, within the early ’90s — the unique age of dishevelled denims and politically tinged celebrity denim ads — India hit a forex disaster that finally led to short-term financial assistance from the Western-dominated Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) and the World Financial institution, which helped help a domestically-led opening of India to commerce and international funding. The “free market” situations that got here with that assist stay contentious: the IMF sees them as key to spurring financial progress — and by extension, swift debt reimbursement — regardless that they usually damage the nation’s poorest , at the least within the brief time period.

By the point denims received skinny within the mid-2000s, corporations like Hole had begun to see India as a promising manufacturing hub. In China, which dominated American clothes manufacturing on the time, wages were rising — which means $4 to $8 per day. However in India, Hole’s subcontractors may pay staff, some of them children , nearer to simply $2 per day. That may appear miserly, however it’s price noting that almost all low-skilled girls staff in India on the time earned under $0.50 per day.

So, as exploitative as these garment business wages could possibly be, additionally they unlocked plenty of prosperity for the nation and job alternatives for a mostly female workforce.

Over a decade, Indian exports ballooned — at an annual tempo of 26 percent in 2006. At the moment, the nation is without doubt one of the largest textile producers (second solely to China ) and the second-largest single cotton producer on this planet. Alongside the way in which, charges of utmost poverty in India — as soon as house to one-third of the world’s poor — plummeted.

A toddler residing in India as we speak is almost thrice extra more likely to finish high school , over 5 occasions extra more likely to have basic plumbing , and 11 occasions much less more likely to die from hunger than only a few many years in the past.

Most economists credit score commerce liberalization — and the financial progress it may well deliver — for propelling these adjustments.

“You'll be able to’t eat GDP, however you possibly can get pleasure from plenty of the advantages of human growth that include larger incomes,” mentioned Cullen Hendrix , an knowledgeable in growth on the Peterson Institute for Worldwide Economics. Which means “extra youngsters making it to their fifth birthday,” and “extra girls with the ability to attend secondary college.”

Whenever you purchase a pair of denims, the cash that you just spend trickles down the availability chain. The highest of the chain — on this case, Hole shareholders — take advantage of cash, however your cashier will get a minimize too. No matter’s left goes to the subcontractor to divvy among the many Indian garment staff who stitched the pants. And the farmer who grew the cotton — the one buying and selling in uncooked supplies — earns the least of all.

However as brutal because the garment business will be — girls are sometimes forced to work extra time in unsanitary situations and lots of face harassment from their supervisors — it's nonetheless seen as the primary rung in climbing up the ladder of the worldwide provide chain and away from exporting uncooked supplies like cotton or cobalt.

At the moment, 45 million textile staff dwell in India, the place textile and attire exports rose by about 7 p.c to $21 billion in 2024 . The nation is now Hole’s second-largest manufacturing hub, with 88 factories in complete, eight of them added between 2021 and 2024. Different main attire manufacturers like Zara , H&M , and Primark manufacture their clothes there, too.

However the 50 p.c tariff from India’s largest commerce companion — which is so excessive on tight-margin merchandise like clothes that it's an effective embargo — has been a blow to this rising business. Indian exports to the US plunged by a whopping 40 percent over the previous 4 months. Hole not too long ago advised buyers that the tariffs will value the corporate up to $175 million , and it has already halted shipments from India.

That could be a disaster for staff who are sometimes paid per piece of clothes sewn.

<img alt="Indian women work on sewing machines in a garment factory, with piles of finished denim clothes in front of them." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-544513946.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0.0062492188476426%2C100%2C99.987501562305&w=2400"/> India is now one of many world’s largest textile producers and the biggest cotton producer on this planet. Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures

Each misplaced order of blue denims means much less cash for staff and “their youngsters, their training, their well being,” and even fundamentals like meals, shelter, and clear water, mentioned Revathy Rugmini, regional director for Asia on the advocacy group Remodel Commerce.

“There are issues which you can management and there are issues which you can’t management,” Hole CEO Richard Dickson told CNBC in August. “The issues that we will management, we’re doing very well.” The corporate didn't reply to a request for remark from Vox.

Talks to succeed in a trade deal between India and the US are ongoing, however India’s garment business is nonetheless bracing for an as much as 10 percent drop in income this 12 months as corporations like Hole shift manufacturing elsewhere.

“Time is of the essence right here,” mentioned Rugmini, who famous that the poorest households — to whom export-driven positive aspects have not been evenly distributed — may simply slip again into poverty if manufacturing stays sluggish.

Three many years in the past, more than half of Vietnam’s inhabitants lived on lower than $3 per day.

However like India, the nonetheless formally communist nation started to slowly liberalize its economic system within the Nineteen Nineties, culminating in a historic commerce take care of the US in 2001. The deal slashed US tariffs on Vietnam from a excessive of 40 p.c to simply 4 p.c, opening the doorways to a wave of international funding.

The shoe juggernaut was one of many earlier worldwide corporations to start manufacturing in Vietnam in 1995 . On the time, Bugs Bunny and basketball icon Michael Jordan Nike ads for the brand new Air Jordans had been in every single place, sneaker gross sales had been skyrocketing, and Nike all of the sudden wanted plenty of new factories to make plenty of new sneakers.

As a carrot for commerce skeptics in Vietnam, the corporate promised to spice up the portion of its sneakers made in the country if the commerce deal was authorised. In 2000, Nike employed simply 45,000 staff at 5 factories in Vietnam, however the firm now makes over half of its sneakers in Vietnam, using almost 450,000 workers at 135 impartial factories. And because the variety of corporations manufacturing in Vietnam ballooned — and as staff received jobs, cities received factories, and Individuals received sneakers — the extent of utmost poverty within the nation fell at one of many quickest charges the world has ever seen. At the moment, just over 1 in 100 people in Vietnam dwell in excessive poverty.

Alongside the way in which, international corporations like Nike repeatedly got here beneath fireplace for exposing garment staff to toxic fumes , proscribing toilet access , and employing children as younger as 14.

Nonetheless, even the sweatshops’ meager wages had been usually a lot larger than what staff may earn elsewhere. As exploitative as they could possibly be, at any time when a international manufacturing facility moved in, incomes consistently rose and poverty fell .

However Vietnam’s explosive export-driven progress did have a catch. The nation’s economic system now revolves largely across the whims of international manufacturing facility house owners from Taiwan and Singapore, who subcontract for even further-flung world conglomerates like Nike.

“Foreigners play an enormous function in Vietnamese manufacturing,” mentioned Edmund Malesky , a professor at Duke specializing in financial growth in Vietnam. “There’s plenty of positivity about what world integration has given Vietnam,” he says, however that dependence has additionally left them weak.

“When you put all of your eggs on this export basket, you then develop into critically dependent in your export markets,” mentioned Ghosh.

On this case, Vietnam’s largest market is an more and more protectionist United States. Trump’s risk to slap a 46 p.c tariff on Vietnam in April despatched Nike executives right into a tailspin. The corporate’s stock nosedived greater than 14 p.c and Nike warned that its losses may add as much as $1 billion , prices that the corporate would seemingly look to offset within its supply chain — specifically, by decreasing wages.

One messy trade deal rollout later, Trump finally lowered tariffs on Vietnam to twenty p.c, plus a vaguely outlined 40 p.c payment for the roughly one-third of Vietnamese exports that move via China first. (Many export producers shifted elements of their manufacturing line to Vietnam as a solution to sidestep the steep tariffs Trump positioned on China throughout his first administration.)

Nike shares recovered somewhat , however what stays continues to be a really massive tariff. Giant sufficient that the United Nations simply estimated the 20 p.c blanket payment — in contrast with a pre-Trump tariff of less than 10 percent — may value the nation as much as $25 billion in lost exports to the US, an almost 20 p.c drop, which might make Vietnam the second-hardest-hit by tariffs on this planet after China.

And if the 40 percent tariff is finally utilized on any so-called transshipments originating abroad, the impression could possibly be much more dramatic. Large swaths of Vietnam’s export manufacturing sector are intertwined with Chinese language provide chains.

“We have now a really expansive and numerous world provide chain that we’ve constructed over 50 years,” Nike CEO Elliott Hill not too long ago advised CNBC . “We’re working via a few of the levers that we've to offset these tariffs,” together with “working with our manufacturing facility companions” abroad.

Vox reached out to Nike concerning the tariffs, and in response, the corporate emphasised its dedication to moral labor practices and famous that it was actively exploring new choices for sourcing its merchandise.

Even with the decreased tariff, sneaker gross sales are already slipping. Vietnam’s all-important footwear exports to the US plunged by 27 p.c in September , whereas textile exports dropped by 20 p.c. The World Financial institution not too long ago cut its GDP forecast for the nation due to the tariffs, which may unravel many years of financial progress.

“The true lesson is that you just actually mustn't tether your total economic system to a different one, even when it’s as massive as the US, as a result of there’s merely an excessive amount of unpredictability,” mentioned Karen Mathiasen, an knowledgeable on the Middle for World Improvement. “One coverage change in the US has thrown the economic system into turmoil.”

Simply earlier than he slapped the tiny, landlocked African nation of Lesotho with the highest tariff on this planet this April, Trump mocked the nation as a spot that “no person has ever heard of.”

He should have by no means read the label on his personal Trump-branded golf polos, a few of that are manufactured by Lesotho’s fragile however vibrant garment business.

And although the US finally decreased Lesotho’s tariff to fifteen p.c, down from 50 p.c in his preliminary declaration, the damage was already done within the textile sector, which employs round 30,000 folks, most of them girls incomes lower than roughly $40 per week .

Lesotho has been a poster baby for the African Progress and Alternative Act (AGOA), which allowed sub-Saharan African international locations — which embody a few of the poorest nations on this planet — to commerce duty-free with the US for the previous quarter-century.

This system, signed into regulation in 2000, aimed to recreate in Africa the identical form of export-driven progress that had begun to nudge international locations like Vietnam into the worldwide center class.

With out export charges, cocoa farmers from Côte d’Ivoire may all of the sudden compete extra simply to get their merchandise into Hershey’s chocolate bars. Kenya’s huge fields of rose flowers may discover their means into your Valentine’s Day bouquets. And Namibian cattle herders may ship Philadelphians their beef (for cheesesteaks, presumably).

However the greatest beneficiaries of AGOA had been international locations like Lesotho, Madagascar, and Ethiopia, the place this system provided a solution to break into the worldwide fast-fashion market, and away from mining, farming, and extracting uncooked supplies for export.

The thought was that African international locations received’t develop if “we simply proceed to eat their oil and their diamonds and their cobalt and their meals exports,” mentioned Hendrix.

And few international locations embraced this system as doggedly as Lesotho, which exported over $237 million price of products like golf polos, Levi’s denims, and Walmart tees to the US final 12 months.

<img alt="Garment workers in Lesotho sit at tables and sewing machines, working on piles of clothing." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/gettyimages-2227208189.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.1009657594381%2C0%2C99.798068481124%2C100&w=2400"/> The tiny landlocked nation of Lesotho is house to a fragile however vibrant garment business that employs round 30,000 folks. Wang Guansen/Xinhua by way of Getty Pictures

However the destiny of AGOA, which expired on the finish of September, now appears bleak. Even when the US eventually revives this system, it’s unclear how new tariffs throughout the African continent would coexist with it.

The Worldwide Financial Fund predicts that these tariffs will lower GDP throughout Africa. And so they come at a time when international help can be being slashed — a double whammy towards growth.

However, whereas the evisceration of help has gotten most of the attention , consultants say that tariffs could possibly be considerably extra damaging over the long run.

“The tariffs are going to be the large, massive, shock to that system,” mentioned Abhijit Banerjee, a Nobel Prize-winning economist for his work learning the contours of worldwide poverty. “The US commerce coverage could be way more damaging to the world than help cuts.”

In fact, Trump can simply manufacture his polo shirts outdoors of Lesotho. At a current go to to his retailer in midtown Manhattan, most Trump-branded clothes confirmed labels from Vietnam, Taiwan, and El Salvador.

Lesotho’s garment staff, although, don't have any such flexibility. The nation went as far as to declare a state of disaster after the tariff took impact.

The textile business in Lesotho was a pillar “that has been driving that nation’s economic system,” mentioned Shimukunku Manchishi, senior coverage officer on the African Future Insurance policies Hub. The tariffs will stifle broader funding and growth in a rustic the place most adults solely dwell into their late 50s and nearly one-third of youngsters are so chronically hungry that they never fully grow .

Why? As a result of the US “doesn’t see Africa as an enormous buying and selling companion that will have a ripple impact, an enormous financial shock, on the USA,” Manchishi mentioned. Increasingly, African international locations really feel likewise, consultants say, with most as an alternative prioritizing their buying and selling relationships with China, the European Union, and one another over an more and more hostile US.

“They’re going to be wanting much less to the west — at the least the far west, the US,” Hendrix mentioned. “And extra in the direction of the east.”

However for a nation like Lesotho, which had develop into a small manufacturing powerhouse for Levi’s denims lately, it appears unlikely that denim would be the path to growth anytime quickly. Most African international locations already trade more with China than they do with the US, however China’s nonetheless the world’s largest textile exporter — and it’s unlikely to develop into an enormous marketplace for African-made clothes anytime quickly.

“This can be a coverage that's going to have opposed results for a few of the poorest folks on Earth,” Hendrix mentioned, “and supply restricted, if any, profit to the US economic system.”

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