The comment was made during a meeting with leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Liberia at the White House on Wednesday.
What good English, so fine, said Trump to Boakai and added:
Where did you learn to speak so well? Where were you educated? In Liberia?
Boakai laughed politely and replied yes.
How interesting, what beautiful English, Trump continued.
”Offensive”
English is Liberia's official language. The West African country was founded in 1822 as a refuge for freed American slaves, by the organization American Colonization Society which tried to solve what they saw as a problem: the future for blacks in the US after slavery was abolished.
Critics now accuse Trump of being ignorant and tactless.
”Trump never misses an opportunity to be racist and offensive, and every day he finds new ways to embarrass himself”, writes the Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett on X.
”I do not know what it is”
It is not the first time Trump ends up in trouble over comments related to African countries. In 2018, in a conversation about migrants in the US, he called Haiti and African countries ”shithole countries”. Last October, he claimed that criminals from ”Congo” had been released in the US to exploit Americans.
They come from Congo, Congo in Africa. I do not know what it is, but a large number of people come from Congo, he said at an election meeting in Wisconsin.
