Tariffs Could Wreck What Bangladesh’s Garment Workers Have Gained In Bangladesh, the factories that make clothing for export had remade themselves and raised national incomes along the way. They never bargained for a trade war. ......... a month ago, as a new government was still working to steady Bangladesh’s economy, came the devastating news that the United States was placing a new 37 percent charge on the country’s goods. Bangladesh relies on revenue from its exports to buy fuel, food and other essentials. ........ Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people crammed onto a delta the size of Wisconsin, was derided as an economic lost cause after its violent birth in the 1970s. It has grown steadfastly since the 1980s on the back of its garment industry. Bangladeshi workers, and women in particular, made the country a seamstress to the world. In the process, the average Bangladeshi has become better off than the average citizen of even India, the giant country next door. ......... A tariff like the one Mr. Trump has planned, along with side effects like the 145 percent tariff that he applied to Chinese goods, would break the very engine of Bangladeshi growth.
....... Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, an economist at the University of Dhaka, was less deferential. He called the tariff threat “an ugly display of power.” It came just as the country, after decades of enviable growth, was facing a recession and vulnerable, he said. ......... A currency crisis in 2024 weakened the government of Sheikh Hasina, who had come to rule with an iron grip over 15 years. Her ouster caused an immediate security vacuum. Nine months later, Bangladesh has yet to come up with a plan to restore its democracy. ......... Nearly 85 percent of Bangladesh’s exported goods are garments, and more ship to the United States than to any other country. Even if Mr. Trump does not bring back the 37 percent tariff when his self-defined grace period ends in July, Bangladesh will face the 10 percent tariff that he levied on virtually the entire world. .......... Even 10 percent is hard to swallow in a low-margin business like the clothing trade. Competition is fierce from China, the only country that exports more, as well as from India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. ............ Bangladesh’s political upheaval was viewed as a sign of hope by Western proponents of liberal democracy. India was annoyed at the demise of an alliance it had built with Ms. Hasina. But the administration of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. welcomed Mr. Yunus. ........... Bangladesh is home to 230 garment factories certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, a U.S.-led protocol of best practices policed by inspectors who make periodic visits. That is more than any other country in the world. ........ Signage around the factory floors is in English first, not the local Bangla. Like other Bangladeshi factories, 4A Yarn Dyeing is used to the prying eyes of foreign inspectors. .......... “The whole economy of this country depends on this sector,” said Mohammad Monower Hossain, the company’s head of sustainability. The people’s movement that overthrew Ms. Hasina understands this, too. As a country, he said, “we have only our labor.”
Neither Aid Nor Trade: The Hidden Cost of the US-China Trade War on the World’s Poorest
In recent decades, the rallying cry for economic progress in the Global South was "Trade, not aid." The idea was simple: developing nations didn’t want charity—they wanted access. Access to markets. Access to opportunity. Access to growth through exports. Trade, it was argued, would provide jobs, build infrastructure, reduce poverty, and accelerate development far more effectively than foreign aid ever could.
But today, under a fractured global order and escalating geopolitical tensions, even that lifeline is slipping away.
The Trump administration signaled a profound shift in U.S. policy. It didn’t just gut foreign aid; it froze the very mechanisms of multilateral trade that allowed poorer countries to plug into the global economy. By launching a trade war against China, Washington wasn’t just targeting Beijing. The ripple effects have devastated smaller, export-driven economies across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America—countries that had built fragile but growing industries supplying intermediate goods to Chinese factories or final products to American retailers.
Textiles aren’t coming back to America. That ship has sailed. The cost of labor, compliance, and infrastructure makes large-scale reshoring of low-margin manufacturing economically unviable. So while U.S. tariffs hurt Chinese exporters, they also destroy the supply chains that connect Bangladesh’s garment workers, Ethiopia’s leather producers, and Vietnam’s electronics assemblers to the world economy.
In effect, we are witnessing a "neither aid nor trade" policy for the world’s poorest. With development assistance slashed and global markets closing, many of these nations are left in a limbo. Their domestic markets are too small for internal growth. Their populations are young, ambitious, and increasingly desperate. And yet, the doors of opportunity are quietly closing in both the West and the East.
This is not just a humanitarian crisis in the making—it’s a geopolitical powder keg. Economic desperation breeds instability. Migration surges. Authoritarianism finds new footholds. And trust in global cooperation erodes even further.
If the world is to rebuild a resilient post-pandemic, post-trade-war economic architecture, it must center the needs of the poorest. Not as an afterthought, not as passive recipients of trickle-down growth, but as essential partners in creating a more just and sustainable global economy.
Any new trade framework must include preferential access, investment in green infrastructure, capacity building, and a digital leapfrog strategy for developing nations. The WTO must be reformed to empower the weakest, not just the wealthiest. Trade finance, logistics, and climate adaptation funding must flow to those who need it most. And aid—strategic, well-targeted aid—must return, not as charity, but as global investment in shared stability and prosperity.
Because without trade or aid, the world’s poorest are not just being forgotten—they are being abandoned. And history has shown, again and again, that such abandonment never ends well. Not for them. Not for us. Not for the world.
