Trump’s False Claims about Lesotho: An Opportunity to Learn Geography

Unit­ed Nations(UN Archives)

Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, Anto­nio Guter­res, meets with King Leslie III dur­ing a recent vis­it to Lesotho.

In his State of the Union address to Con­gress on Tues­day, March 4th, the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, Don­ald Trump, spoke about var­i­ous top­ics. Ini­tial­ly, I lis­tened for a bit, but I need­ed to step away because I felt the speech includ­ed too much that didn’t res­onate with me. 

How­ev­er, I tuned back in, espe­cial­ly when Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Al Green from Texas began to stir things up. Once he was escort­ed out and the atmos­phere set­tled, I resumed watch­ing, albeit half­heart­ed­ly, until the moment the pres­i­dent men­tioned Lesotho. At first, I was intrigued. 

False Statements about African Nations

Since return­ing to office, Pres­i­dent Trump has made many false and mis­lead­ing state­ments in his speeches. 

Accord­ing to CNN’s fact check­ers, the State of the Union address includ­ed dozens of false claims and mis­state­ments, includ­ing the one regard­ing Lesotho. CNN’s Daniel Dale remarked,“…by the stan­dards of any politi­cian in Wash­ing­ton who is not Don­ald Trump, that was still an extreme­ly dis­hon­est speech.” 

Trump also men­tioned Mozam­bique, Ugan­da, and Zam­bia in his speech, where he said the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion had spent mon­ey on social projects that he con­sid­ered wasteful 

Hear­ing about Lesotho was eye-open­ing to many Amer­i­cans, sim­i­lar to learn­ing about Gaza in Mozam­bique, where Repub­li­cans claimed that the Unit­ed States Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment or USAID spent 50 mil­lion dol­lars on con­doms. Not only was that mis­in­for­ma­tion, but Trump’s asser­tion that no one had heard of Lesotho, stands out as one of the most mis­lead­ing state­ments ever, made by some­one in such a sig­nif­i­cant position.

Regard­less of whether Trump intend­ed his remark as a joke, it can still come across as an insult or dis­re­spect to a coun­try that tru­ly deserves bet­ter from an Amer­i­can pres­i­dent. For the peo­ple of Lesotho, many of whom expressed their out­rage when Trump claimed that no one knew about their coun­try, this offers a chance for us to learn more about this beau­ti­ful African nation. 

What is Lesotho?

Accord­ing to the US Depart­ment of State, Lesotho is a con­sti­tu­tion­al monar­chy that has expe­ri­enced a mix of mil­i­tary rule as well as some demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance. The coun­try has main­tained demo­c­ra­t­ic rela­tions with the US since it gained inde­pen­dence in 1966. The coun­try has about 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple, and its nation­al cap­i­tal is Maseru. Thomas Hines, cur­rent US ambas­sador to the coun­try, assumed his func­tions in August 2024, accord­ing to the US embassy website. 

As a native-born African from Cameroon, I have heard about Lesotho count­less times. While I haven’t had the chance to vis­it yet, I feel that now is the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for me, and for any­one who has yet to explore the African con­ti­nent, to final­ly plan that long-await­ed trip! 

Dur­ing his first term, I wrote exten­sive­ly about the admin­is­tra­tion’s neglect of the African con­ti­nent. The pres­i­dent nev­er made a trip to Africa dur­ing his first term in office, often dis­cussing it in neg­a­tive terms. His infa­mous “shit­hole coun­tries” com­ment sparked con­sid­er­able anger among Africans. 

While these sen­ti­ments can some­times lead to frus­tra­tion, this could be a moment to reflect on how we, as Africans, both at home and abroad, would like to be perceived.

Neg­a­tive views of Africa held by Amer­i­cans and oth­er West­ern coun­tries should­n’t prompt us to respond with neg­a­tiv­i­ty. Instead, it presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case our humil­i­ty. For those Amer­i­cans and West­ern­ers who have vis­it­ed the con­ti­nent, Lesotho is well-known. As described by Lesotho’s own peo­ple, it is a stun­ning coun­try that warm­ly invites the world to explore. 

On a pos­i­tive note, Pres­i­dent Trump should take advan­tage of this oppor­tu­ni­ty dur­ing his sec­ond term to vis­it Africa. His trip should be moti­vat­ed not sole­ly by Africa’s con­tri­bu­tions to the world but rather because its peo­ple rep­re­sent a great gift to humanity.