Lesotho\u2019s government says it is shocked by US President Donald Trump saying that \u201cnobody has ever heard of\u201d the southern African nation.<\/p>\n
Trump, addressing the US Congress in his first speech since his return to the Oval Office, made the reference as he listed cuts made to what he said was wasteful expenditure.<\/p>\n
\u201cEight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,\u201d Trump said, eliciting laughter from some US lawmakers.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Lesotho\u2019s foreign affairs department told the BBC that Lesotho enjoyed \u201cwarm and cordial\u201d relations with the US.<\/p>\n
Lesotho is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the US\u2019s African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which gives favourable trade access to some countries to promote their economic growth.<\/p>\n
According to the US government, the two countries traded goods worth $240m (\u00a3187m) in 2024, mostly exports from Lesotho to the US, in particular textiles and clothing.<\/p>\n
Lesotho\u2019s Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane said it was \u201cshocking\u201d to hear a head of state \u201crefer to another sovereign state in that manner\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo my surprise, \u2018the country that nobody has heard of\u2019 is the country where the US has a permanent mission,\u201d Mpotjoane told the BBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cLesotho is a member of the UN and of a number of other international bodies. And the US has an embassy here and [there are] a number of US organisations we\u2019ve accommodated here in Maseru.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later told the AFP news agency: \u201cWe are not taking this matter lightly,\u201d adding that they would send an official protest letter to Washington.<\/p>\n
Officials dismissed Trump\u2019s remarks as \u201coff the cuff\u201d and a \u201cpolitical statement\u201d, adding that they were \u201cuncalled-for\u201d given the good relations between the two nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe maintain very warm and cordial relations with the US. They\u2019ve got a mission in Maseru and we also have [one] in Washington,\u201d foreign affairs spokesperson Kutloano Pheko told the BBC.<\/p>\n
Mr Pheko was unable to confirm Trump\u2019s comments on the funding that went to LGBTQ organisations, saying that as the money went directly to them, they would be best placed to comment.<\/p>\n
Mpotjoane, on his part, confirmed that the country had been affected by Trump\u2019s sudden decision to pause aid funding to countries around the world.<\/p>\n
Many organisations, mostly non-governmental, were thrown into chaos after the Trump administration announced a permanent end to the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) funding as part of a wider cost-cutting drive to reduce US government spending.<\/p>\n
Pepfar was launched in 2003 by then US President George W Bush and its finances are distributed via the US government\u2019s main overseas aid agency USAID, whose funding has also been cut.<\/p>\n
Lesotho is among those countries that benefited from Pepfar, its health ministry told South African publication GroundUp in February, with TB and HIV programmes among those receiving the critical funds.<\/p>\n
But Mpotjoane declined to criticise this decision, saying it was the US\u2019s \u201cprerogative to cut aid if they want to\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lesotho\u2019s government says it is shocked by US President Donald Trump saying that \u201cnobody has ever heard of\u201d the southern African nation. Trump, addressing the US Congress in his first speech since his return to the Oval Office, made the reference as he listed cuts made to what he said was wasteful expenditure. \u201cEight million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}