Rubber latex is bled from a tree at a rubber farm in Grand Bassa County, on March 14, 2026. Rubber is among Liberia's main cash crops, but experts say the poor west African nation is shortchanged when tyres and other rubber goods are only manufactured abroad. Estimates place the number of smallholder households that grow rubber trees in Liberia at 35,000, and the number of people working at commercial rubber farms at 20,000, according to a US International Trade Administration document last updated in 2024. While there is no official estimate of the financial loss from the absence of tyre manufacturing, Gould said "the economic opportunity cost is considerable". (Photo by MATTHEW JACOBS / AFP via Getty Images)