During a meeting with the leaders of several African nations at the White House, President Donald Trump took a pause Wednesday to compliment Liberian President Joseph Boakai’s English.
“Well, thank you,” Trump said after Boakai spoke. “And such good English, that’s beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?”
“Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia? Well, that’s very interesting. It’s beautiful English,” he added. “I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well.”
English is Liberia’s national language.
Though the country has a sizable Indigenous population, many who live there are descendants of freed American slaves who were sent to Africa in the early 19th century. The country’s capital, Monrovia, was named for James Monroe, the fifth U.S. president and a supporter of the effort to establish Liberia as a state for freed American slaves. (Monroe himself was a slave owner.)
Liberia was founded as both American abolitionists and slaveholders sought to resettle the rising number of free Black people in the early 1800s. Black and white Americans debated whether people of all races could integrate in the U.S. The American Colonization Society purchased a strip of land on Africa’s west coast and began shuttling Black people from the U.S. to the colony in the 1820s.
In 1847, Liberia established a Constitution modeled after America’s and declared independence. In its Declaration of Independence, Liberia charged the U.S. with racism, violence and inequality that forced them to leave and create a new nation.
It is now Africa’s oldest modern republic and the second-oldest Black-led republic in the world, following Haiti, which was founded in 1804 after overthrowing the French.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks.
The president’s comments sparked some backlash online.
“Trump never misses an opportunity to be racist and wrong, and every day he finds a new way to be embarrassing,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said. “Asking the President of Liberia where he learned English when it’s literally the official language is peak ignorance. I’m pretty sure being blatantly offensive is not how you go about conducting diplomacy…”
“Absolutely the dumbest man in govt,” said former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a prominent Trump critic. “This is just ridiculous.
In his first term, Trump faced criticism from African and Haitian officials when he referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries“ during a 2018 meeting with a bipartisan group of senators.
