The night before US President Donald Trump’s tariffs were set to kick off this week, Rubana Huq convened an emergency meeting of some of Bangladesh’s most prominent exporters.
From her living room in an upscale part of Dhaka, the group that supplies brands like H&M and Dollar Tree couldn’t quite believe how the US was suddenly treating the world’s poorest nations. They spoke about how the levies would devastate their factories, and expressed anxiety about rejigging supply chains.
The frustration boiled over for Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, whose company counts 150,000 employees.
“We are one of ...