Trump praises English of country's leader - where English is official language
Donald Trump has been mercilessly mocked after a bizarre exchange where he praised the President of Liberia for learning English - the African country's national language.
The US president, who regularly boasts over having the 'best words', raised eyebrows after an odd and awkward exchange with Liberia's president during a White House meeting with African leaders. As the room filled with formal statements, many delivered in native African languages through interpreters, President Joseph Boakai of Liberia began speaking in English. He thanked Trump for the opportunity to meet and voiced support for his 'Make America Great Again' policy, saying his country is a "longtime friend" of the US.
'Liberia is a longtime friend of the United States and we believe in your policy of making America great again,' Boakai said. 'We just want to thank you so much for this opportunity.'
The comment appeared to take Trump by surprise. 'Such good English,' the US leader said admiringly. 'Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?' Boakai, momentarily stunned, nervouly laughed. 'In Liberia?' he replied. 'Yes sir,' he confirmed.
Trump, seemingly unaware that English has been Liberia's official language since its founding in the early 19th Century by freed Black Americans, responded, 'That's very interesting. I have people at this table who can't speak nearly as well.'
It's not the first time the president's basic comprehension of world affairs has come into question. Critics were quick to pounce, noting that Liberia's historical and linguistic ties to the United States are well documented.
The West African country was founded in 1822 by the American Colonisation Society as a settlement for freed slaves from the US, and English remains its official language. 'You don't need a PhD in international relations to know Liberia speaks English,' one X user wrote. 'You just need to have passed Year 9.'
The gaffe follows a string of recent Trump moments that have sparked concerns over his mental acuity. Just weeks ago, Trump appeared to confuse his rival Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi while talking about the Capitol riot.
He's repeatedly misidentified world leaders and misstated policy details, and in one rally, he declared he had defeated Barack Obama in the 2020 election.
' Donald Trump became the oldest president to ever be sworn in to the White House - and it is starting to show,' said one political analyst. 'You can't have these constant blunders and still demand to be taken seriously as a global statesman.'
At the meeting, Trump tried to pivot to trade policy, declaring, 'We're shifting from aid to trade. There's great economic potential in Africa, like few other places.'
The assembled African leaders appeared unfazed, choosing instead to flatter Trump's efforts on the world stage.
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STV News
26 minutes ago
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
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26 minutes ago
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'We don't know what will happen, it's up to the Home Office,' said an employee. Another told me the hotel residents – who have cooked for people in Diss, taken English lessons at the library and sent their children to local schools – were distressed. Locals spoke, some unprompted, about the 'young, fit men' due to arrive. Emma Lummis, 47, a school worker, had banned her 13-year-old daughter from going out in the town centre, or wearing a short skirt. 'You just don't know who these people are. We're not racist. It's not about whether you're white or not; it's about whether you're a wrong 'un.' A 55-year-old woman who had collected donations and organised craft events for the families told me they had 'integrated' and 'Diss is a very welcoming town' – just not the place for young men. 'Just like the 'professionally unemployed' British guys drinking in the park, they would have nothing to do here but hang around.' 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It is a tired tale of cuts, broken pledges, neighbourhood neglect and poor-value outsourcing. But a subplot fraught with rumour and racism is darkening the story. Reporting around England in recent years, again and again I have encountered the same fears: that these newcomers might assault women and girls. Riots in Southport and Ballymena over the past two years had the same trigger: charges of attacks on young girls. The Best Western Brook Hotel in Bowthorpe, Norwich – a site of recent protests – was home to a man now imprisoned for raping a woman, and another for asking a 14-year-old boy to send naked pictures. At Epping's Bell Hotel, there have been both violent clashes and peaceful protests after one resident, now in custody, was charged with sexual assault for allegedly attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl (which he denies). Such cases have led to the demonisation of young male asylum seekers as potential criminals and sex offenders. The memory of working-class white girls groomed by British-Pakistani gangs pulses through these suspicions. Victims then were ignored by authorities, partly down to political correctness – a fact that emboldens some people to voice Islamophobic generalisations about the attitudes of certain men towards women. Police National Computer data suggesting Afghans and Eritreans are more than 20 times more likely to be convicted of sexual offences than British citizens are widely shared. Officials warn, however, that this data neither accounts for gender nor for how much younger these ethnic groups are than the British average (young men generally are more likely to commit crime), that it is 'not reliable for nationality' as it omits dual nationals and that it doesn't reflect the number of repeat offenders. After violence outside the Bell Hotel, where officers were injured and 17 protesters arrested, Keir Starmer warned of a second summer of riots. Unrest last year followed the murder of three girls in Southport. The perpetrator, born in Britain to Rwandan parents, was falsely said to be a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived on a small boat – disinformation that led to rioters attacking a mosque and setting an asylum hotel on fire. Anger is not just confected online in bad faith. At one Epping protest, I was struck by the dissonance between mums waving suffragette flags and grandmas Sharpie-ing 'Protect Our Kids' on to M&S bags for life, and the presence of ex-British National Party councillors and a member of Homeland, a far-right splinter group of the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative. Wearing a T-shirt with the slogan 'Save Our Children', the vice-chairman of Reform UK's Epping Forest branch, Orla Minihane, described this wave of protest to me as a '#MeToo moment'. 'Women won't go out for runs, they're getting their husbands to pick them up from the station, they're scared to walk their dogs,' she said. 'I'm sure most of the men in there are good, decent people – but we don't know.' She waved a suffragette flag among the rippling St George's Crosses. 'When we walk past a woman with a child, she pulls the child behind her as if we are going to take them – it is so painful to see,' said Khadar, 20, a Somali asylum seeker living at the Bell Hotel who crossed the Channel three months ago. 'We are not here to hurt you. It was very good here before the incident. Now we feel uncomfortable and there is a lot of tension; people treat us like we're criminals and say insulting words.' Another young Somali man at the Bell Hotel, who preferred not to be named, had been chased by a group of men while shopping. Even as warm sunshine soaked the tree tops of Epping Forest opposite, he pulled a thick black jacket around him and glanced around as we spoke. 'I was very scared.' 'Sexual violence and crime impacts all communities and involves perpetrators of all races,' said Georgie Laming, of the anti-fascist campaign group Hope not Hate. 'It's clear from Epping how an arrest, an allegation or a rumour can quickly take hold, be whipped up and racialised by the far right.' Rumours were ripping through the protests outside the Bell Hotel. I was told repeatedly that Essex Police had bussed anti-racism activists towards the demonstration – a story the force denies but which is all over social media and has been repeated by Nigel Farage. Numerous protesters also told me hotel residents were shoplifting from Tesco, but the police had no reports of this, and the local Tesco had no knowledge of it either. Since 2020, the year asylum seekers moved into the Bell, instances of rape, reports of antisocial behaviour and the number of robberies have dropped in the area. There is also misapprehension that the hotels are five-star experiences for their new guests. 'They're fed and watered, have hot showers, for free,' said an Epping local of 45 years. 'But for us living here, the town has gone downhill.' In Diss, the school worker I met said: 'We're working our arses off and they're given a lovely hotel, clean sheets every morning, it's plush.' In reality, those with knowledge of the Park Hotel talked of breakfast running out, children going hungry and women asking for donations of buckets and mops because of uncleanliness. At another hotel, I've seen a four-year-old scarred from bed-bug bites and families falling sick from undercooked chicken. I've also heard of young people forced to share rooms with adult strangers. The children's commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, found a 'troubling' lack of safeguarding at these hotels. Such details don't resonate, though, when the world outside the hotels is one of low wages, housing shortages and a crumbling public realm. 'You've got to look after your own first,' said the factory operative. 'We need stuff given to English people, they haven't got houses themselves,' said the school worker. 'This town is empty, it's dead; people haven't got money to shop anymore. I worry about my future grandchildren: life is shit now, what will life be for them?' Deprivation and social dislocation, not levels of immigration, were the most common factors in riot-hit areas last summer, according to a report shared exclusively with the New Statesman that has been read in No 10. 'This Place Matters', by Citizens UK, UCL Policy Lab, and More in Common, finds no consistent correlation between high immigration to an area and low social cohesion. Rather, integration is what counts. The constituencies that experienced unrest all have populations where more people feel 'disconnected' than 'connected'. While financial insecurity is one of the strongest predictors of disconnection, the report identifies other alienating trends: neglected high streets and town centres, the decline of in-person socialising, and a loss of 'associational life' – fewer communal spaces where people interact, remote working and even self-checkouts. In a town of shuttered shops and fly-tipping – where children's centres and social housing and the municipal fireworks display are just a memory – it is little wonder you look up less from your phone. And when that screen is full of lurid innuendo, shared by politicians and activists who have no beguiling slogans for public service reform or community renewal, it only takes a spark to light the tinder. 'In Somalia, I couldn't work because I was in a rural area ruled by militia. I wanted to come to England for a better life, to contribute, not to depend on government, and it took ten hours on the boat – so long and painful with people suffocating,' said Khadar of the Bell Hotel. 'I thought England was a good place, more welcoming than Europe, and would help a lot. Now it feels like a hostile land.' [See more: Can Starmer and Trump come to an agreement on Gaza?] Related
