During a meeting with the leaders of several African nations at the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump took a pause 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.”
Liberia, located on Africa’s West Coast, uses English as the country’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 5th 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 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 the 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.
It’s not the first time that his comments about an African leader or an African nation have drawn controversy.
During the president’s first term, in 2018, he referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators.
The comment drew swift condemnation from African and Haitian officials at the time.
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