Commentaries

Lesotho has declared a national State of Disaster after a 50% tariff imposed by Donald Trump decimated its textile sector. The sudden collapse of its biggest employer has left tens of thousands jobless, exposing the country's economic fragility and raising alarm over the future of AGOA-supported trade across sub-Saharan Africa.

Egypt's textile industry is rapidly emerging as a global manufacturing hub, driven by competitive labour costs, strategic location, and massive Chinese investment. With exports surging 18% to $2.84 billion in 2024 and government modernisation plans targeting $12 billion by 2031, Egypt is positioning itself as a key alternative to traditional textile centres.

Indonesia's largest textile manufacturer Sritex has collapsed into bankruptcy, leaving over 10,000 workers jobless whilst Central Java communities celebrate a landmark pollution victory against the fast fashion giant's environmental crimes.

India’s withdrawal of the trans-shipment facility marks more than a bureaucratic hiccup—it represents a tectonic shift in South Asian trade geopolitics. At the heart of it lies the Bangladeshi apparel industry, now navigating increased costs, longer transit times, and geopolitical uncertainty. The episode underscores how strategic rivalry between India and China is beginning to shape—even weaponise—trade logistics and bilateral relationships.

The Big Bro vice-like squeeze of the sweeping tariff hikes will soon be felt far beyond edgy boardrooms and uneasy stock exchanges, and there are sporadic reports of this already starting to take effect. For hundreds of thousands of garment workers—many in the factories across South and Southeast Asia, and Africa to a lesser extent—the arbitrary spike in trade tariffs will be a matter of life and death.

In today's world people move from one outrage to the next with as much ease as they swipe left over to the next reel. Last year’s Brazil cotton controversy has resurfaced not only because it has been a year to the revelation, but also because Better Cotton is itself pursuing the thread. And, the loopholes in Better Cotton's damage control exercise that was pointed out by Earthsight remain yawning.

Perspectives are varied, and it is not an open-and-shut case against US Prez Donald Trump as his political opponents would have us believe. The tariff calculations could be questionable and the unilateral announcement should be decried, but what’s amply clear is this: trade will never be the same again.

The problem of deforestation is extended to leather only by ‘proxy’. The entire industry—the world across—has just about a year in not only to put in place traceability systems that work and are cheap, but also to shed off the deforestation tag. texfash tries to unravel the threads.

Bangladesh's readymade garments (RMG) industry grew by a whopping 280% during the 15-year tenure of Sheikh Hasina Wazed's Awami League. Both the League and the RMG industry fed off each other, but with Hasina being ousted and public sentiments overwhelmingly against the Awami League, the country's political turmoil is bound to take its toll on the RMG industry.

The last piece in this five-part series on the twin subjects of the second-hand clothing in Africa and that of post-consumer textile waste in the content emphasises that the two are, of course, related, but not in the way that Western activists would like us to believe.