The South African and regional textile sectors are expected to navigate the US tariffs well if they leverage their regional value chains with Lesotho as a key supplier.
Michael Lawrence, executive director of the National Clothing Retail Federation of South Africa (NCRF), told Business Times that, given the US domestic capacity in this segment remains limited, he expects Lesotho’s role as a reliable exporter to the US will be maintained.
“NCRF members actively monitor these dynamics, both to safeguard supply continuity and to identify opportunities for strengthening regional supply into the South African market,” he said. “Our members operate with 18 to 24-month sourcing horizons, which ensures that supply chain decisions are taken with careful attention to sustainability, competitiveness and alignment with evolving consumer demand.”
When US President Donald Trump announced tariffs that took effect in August, Lesotho faced levies of 50% but managed to negotiate them down to 10%.
Lawrence said the reduction of US tariffs created a predictable and competitive environment, aligning Lesotho with the duty structures of other global suppliers.
He said Lesotho’s clothing and textile manufacturing sector remained an important sourcing base for several NCRF members.
“It is too early to quantify the full impact. However, NCRF members are well-positioned to manage uncertainty through diversified sourcing strategies, long-standing supplier relationships and robust logistics planning.
“The resilience of our supply chains — built on decades of experience navigating global trade shifts — provides confidence that the region can remain competitive while adapting to fragmentation pressures.”
Lawrence said a fully integrated clothing, textile, footwear and leather value chain within the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) was a shared ambition. While the availability of low-cost imports from the East has historically constrained this vision, the NCRF participates in initiatives that strengthen regional capacity, he said.
“The benefits of deeper regional co-operation are clear. Improved supply security, reduced dependency on extra-regional markets, enhanced competitiveness and the creation of sustainable jobs.”
Brian Brink, executive director of the Textile Federation (Texfed), said South Africa was never a large exporter of textiles to the US, as yarns, fabrics and made-up textiles were excluded from tariff relief under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
“Hence, textile exports to the US never really took off,” he said. “Clothing exports were afforded duty-free entry into the US under Agoa, but under very strict three-stage rules of origin. The third-country exemption on fabric origin under Agoa for lesser developed countries was never extended to South Africa’s apparel exports.”
With the tariffs on South Africa’s neighbours being reduced to 10%, the impact of the levies on production and exports from the region will be marginal, although the impact of the initial 50% so-called reciprocal tariffs on countries such as Lesotho would have been catastrophic, Brink said.
“The level of duty placed on all of South Africa’s neighbours, including Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Mozambique, and even non-Agoa beneficiary Zimbabwe, now faces a very reduced reciprocal tariff. As a result, the impact of the Trump tariffs will have been greatly reduced on the region.”
With the industrial and trade policies being followed in the region, it is not clear what benefits would be achieved from co-operation between the various countries’ clothing sectors. With the introduction of rebates, duty-free regimes and the negative effects of master plans on the raw material sectors, little advantage would be obtained from cross-border co-operation.
The opportunity places textile producers and retailers who have invested in manufacturing capacity in a sound position. For instance, The Foschini Group (TFG) invested R52m into building a clothing factory in Caledon, Western Cape, which trains and employs about 900 people.
Sean Kirby, head of TFG manufacturing and prestige clothing within the TFG design and manufacturing division, said that as far back as 2012 the group had looked at global best practice retailing and acknowledged a shift from the traditional long lead time retail model towards “quick response”, which relied on local and near-sourcing.
“Global sourcing for further production shifted rapidly to the East,” he said. “And the East gave good price points, but it also gave long lead times. And what we were learning was that the industry leaders globally had moved away from that model and had seen the benefits of local and near-sourcing.”
He said a clothing retailer needs a capable local supply chain that is able to take that information from retail and design and quickly put a product into production and deliver it to the store.
“What we’ve aimed at is to work towards a lead time of an average 56 days. And that’s from the purchase order being raised to the product being delivered to a DC. South Africa has a history of clothing production. Part of that history is not a positive one in the sense that when South Africa’s economy liberalised and retailers were able to source goods from low-cost destinations in the East, the local manufacturing industry was negatively impacted.”
He said a lot of local production in the sector had declined and that South Africa had lost a lot of skills as well as factories.
“And what TFG has done since 2012 is to reinvest heavily in that capacity, and that capability has rebuilt a lot of that competence within the sewing production space. So, really, the why is premised on the quick-response business model. That’s a cornerstone of TFG’s strategy decision to vertically integrate and to own part of that supply chain to build that model.”
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