While hosting leaders from five African countries at the White House, Donald Trump told Joseph Boakai – the president of Liberia, where English is the official language – that he had spoken ‘such good English’.
Boakai was advocating for US investment in Liberia as well as a joint approach to peace and security in the region.
Liberia was founded in 1822 as a colony for freed Black Americans. It was the brainchild of white Americans trying to address what they saw as a ‘problem’ – the growing number of free Black people in the US. English is Liberia’s official language, though multiple Indigenous languages are spoken there as well.
Trump seemed unaware of this – as well as Liberia’s close ties to the US – as he hosted the leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal on Wednesday.
He told them that he was shifting the US approach to the continent from aid to trade and that the US was a better partner for Africa than China.
