It was meant to be a lunch at the White House celebrating Africa\u2019s economic potential \u2013 and ended, as so often, in a moment of unintended comedy likely to go down in history. Donald Trump, host of a small, exclusive gathering of African heads of state, had handed the floor to Joseph Boakai, the president of Liberia. And no sooner had Boakai finished than Trump offered his verdict with the grandeur of an elementary school teacher after a first poetry recital: \u201cSuch good English. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?\u201d Boakai, who governs a country whose official language has been English since its founding, laughed \u2013 perhaps politely, perhaps puzzled. \u201cIn Liberia, sir,\u201d he replied. But Trump didn\u2019t let it go: \u201cThat\u2019s very interesting. Beautiful English.\u201d And then the jab at his own team: \u201cI have people at this table who don\u2019t speak nearly as well.\u201d It was a scene that could only happen in Trump\u2019s Washington \u2013 half compliment, half cluelessness, entirely revealing. That Liberia was founded in the 1820s by freed African American slaves, and to this day is governed, linguistically shaped, and constitutionally organized in English, seemed to escape Trump. Yet for him, it appeared to be a mystery how a Black man from Africa could speak such good English. In other words, it was a moment of colonial astonishment in the 21st century \u2013 live from the White House dining room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attending heads of state from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mauritania, and Liberia had been invited to discuss supply chains, private investment, and resource deals \u2013 or, in Trump\u2019s view, to listen to him and admire him. And that\u2019s exactly what happened. After the initial awkwardness passed, the meeting seamlessly transitioned into a tribute session. The Mauritanian president declared that he saw no reason why Trump shouldn\u2019t receive the Nobel Peace Prize \u2013 after all, he was \u201cworking tirelessly for peace throughout the world, without distinction.\u201d Other heads of state praised the recently signed peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo \u2013 a deal Trump had also brought into the Oval Office. At that previous occasion, the U.S. president had told an African journalist she was \u201cbeautiful\u201d and that he wished he had \u201cmore reporters like you,\u201d a comment many still remembered. But Trump, accustomed to his own parallel universe, reveled in the praise: \u201cI could do this all day,\u201d he said, as the group took turns showering him with flattery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only the major economies of the continent \u2013 Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia \u2013 had not been invited. Instead, the selection favored countries whose presidents appeared considerably more grateful. Thus, what began as an economic lunch became a reflection of American foreign policy under Trump: selective, self-adoring \u2013 and always ready to turn ignorance into a virtue. In the end, the question remains: what carried more weight \u2013 the promised investments or the linguistic compliments? But as Trump himself would say: Beautiful!<\/p>\n
Es war ein Lunch im Wei\u00dfen Haus, der Afrikas wirtschaftliches Potenzial feiern sollte \u2013 und endete, wie so oft, in einem Moment unfreiwilliger Komik, der in die Geschichte eingehen d\u00fcrfte. Donald Trump, Gastgeber einer kleinen, exklusiven Runde afrikanischer Staatschefs, hatte Joseph Boakai das Wort erteilt, dem Pr\u00e4sidenten Liberias. Und kaum war Boakai fertig, folgte Trumps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,41,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-topstory","category-trump-s-world","category-world-news"],"yoast_head":"\n