Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028874
LIBERIA
LIBERIAN PRESIDENT BOKAI WITH TRUMP IN USA
Trump Humiliates Himself With Idiotic Question to Liberian President
LIBERIAN PRESIDENT BOKAI WITH TRUMP IN USA
Trump Humiliates Himself With Idiotic Question to Liberian President
Donald Trump points while speaking during a meeting
with African leaders at the White House
Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Original article: https://newrepublic.com/post/197770/donald-trump-question-liberian-president-english More about Joseph Bokai ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Boakai
Donald Trump had the cringiest response to remarks from the president of Liberia.
Written by Edith Olmsted
July 9, 2025/3:21 p.m. ET
Donald Trump humiliated himself Wednesday in front of several leaders of African states by revealing just how little he knows about their countries.
During a meeting with leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal, as part of a multiday summit to discuss “commercial opportunities,” Trump attempted to pay a compliment to Liberian President Joseph Boakai—but fell completely flat.
“Such good English, such beautiful—where did you learn to speak so beautifully?” Trump asked. “Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia?”
“Yes, sir,” Boakai answered.
“Well, that’s very interesting. It’s beautiful English. I have people at this table [that] can’t speak nearly as well,” Trump said.
It would clearly surprise Trump to learn that English is the official language of Liberia.
Trump’s condescending compliment reveals only his own ignorance—but one can hardly be surprised. There are some of us who still remember his “shithole countries” comment.
Liberia has already been severely affected by Trump’s dissolution of the U.S. Agency for Internal Development. Liberia previously received an average of $527.6 million in aid annually between 2014 and 2023. Most of that went toward funding 48 percent of Liberia’s fragile health care system. In 2025, the small West African nation was intended to receive $443 million, but it has now seen $290 million of that funding cut.
Additionally, two weeks ago, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced that the U.S. would no longer fund a global vaccine program called GAVI, which supplies vaccines to poor children around the world.
In a statement Monday, Liberia said the “high-level Summit aims to deepen diplomatic ties, advance shared economic goals, and enhance security cooperation between the United States and select African nations.” Now the country may be considering accepting immigrants as part of Trump’s massive deportation scheme.
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I got to know Joseph Boakai back in the 1980s when I was doing consulting work for the World Bank in Liberia. My task was to assess the performance of the Liberian Produce Marketing Corporation (LPMC), a State owned corporation that was responsible for agricultural crop marketing in Libera including export marketing andd recommend its privatization.
The World Bank's 'assumption' was that all State owned organizations were inefficient and corrupt ... and they were looking for my consultancy to confirm this assumption and set the stage for privatization. At that time in the 1980s, the World Bank's assiumption was that all state owned enterprises were inefficient and corrupt which was often true ... but not always.
My small consulting team ... myself (british based in the USA), Ms Kandakai Renner, (a Liberian Consultant) and George Hunt, (a Canadian agricultural economist with considerable knowledge of African agriculture) visited almost all the operations of LPMC all over Liberia over a period of about five weeks. It turned out to be an impressive operation that was doing exactly what was needed in support of agriculture in Liberia ... getting crops from the farmgate into the market quickly and efficiently including various intermediate processing operations as well as coordinating exports. Joseph Bokai was the Managing Director ably assisted by a no-nonsense Swedish expatriate who was also the Swedish consultate in Monrovia.
Our report was not what the World Bank expected and not what they wanted!
Some time after this World Bank assessment of LPMC, Joseph Bokai was appointed to the position of Minister of Agriculture in the Liberian Government a position he held for quite a long time.
Presidential politics in Liberia was a disaster for quite a long time. President Charles Taylor eventually was indited and convicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague and is now serving a life sentence.
Eventually Liberia stabilised somewhat after the election of President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson in 2004. Joseph Bokai became her Vice Presdient. She was President for two terms.
Joseph Bokai ran for President in 2017 but lost to George M. Weah who was well known as a soccer player but was not particularly well qualified for the presidency. In the following election, some years later, Bokai ran again against Weah and this time won.
I am somewhat optimistic that Joseph Bokai will be good for Liberia. Unlike so many who get into politics and then into quite high positions becasue they are 'loud', Bokai is quiet and works with other quiet competent people with everyone cooperating and contributing.
My very best wishes to President Joseph Bokai of Liberia. I wish him well ... the task ahead of him is enormous.
Peter Burgess