United States President Donald Trump has drawn mockery after he complimented the president of Liberia for talking English “fantastically”, regardless that it’s the nation’s official language.
“Such good English, the place did you study to talk so fantastically?” Trump requested Joseph Boakai throughout a gathering with 5 African leaders on the White Home on Wednesday.
“In Liberia?” Trump requested. Boakai appeared to chuckle earlier than responding: “Sure sir.”
Alex Vines, head of the Africa Programme on the London assume tank, Chatham Home, advised Al Jazeera: “President Trump’s restricted data of Africa was on present along with his touch upon President Boakai’s high quality of English.”
Liberia was based in 1822 as a colony for freed Black American slaves as white People sought to handle what they noticed as an issue – the presence of Black individuals in the US as soon as slavery ended.
Here’s a potted historical past of the African nation:
The place is Liberia and the way populous is it?
The nation of 5 million individuals is positioned on the Western African coast and is bounded by Sierra Leone to the northwest, Guinea to the north, Ivory Coast to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west.
Liberia was based in 1822 and have become a republic in 1847. It’s now Africa’s oldest republic and is seen by many as a logo of African self-determination. Together with Ethiopia, it’s the solely African nation that was by no means colonised throughout Europe’s scramble for the continent.
There are formally 16 ethnic teams that make up Liberia’s Indigenous African inhabitants, with the biggest being the Kpelle.
(Al Jazera)
How, why and when was Liberia based?
Because the abolitionist motion in opposition to slavery gained floor within the US in 1822, a gaggle of 86 previously enslaved individuals arrived in Liberia’s present-day capital, Monrovia, the nation’s largest port.
Jehudi Ashmun, a white American, was main efforts by the American Colonization Society (ACS) to resettle free individuals of color in Africa. Whereas some selected to to migrate willingly, the organisation is understood to have pressured or coerced others into relocating.
ACS was established by white People who believed that the presence of free Black individuals within the US posed a risk to the nation, as they could incite those that remained in slavery to insurgent. Some additionally believed within the “inferiority” of Black individuals and thought them unable to realize equality in American society. The organisation’s objective was, subsequently, to ascertain a colony in West Africa that may take them in.
Liberia was proclaimed an unbiased republic in 1847, turning into the primary African republic to realize such standing and be recognised by Western nations. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, an African American who had emigrated to Liberia in 1829 and turn into a politician, was elected the primary president of the brand new nation.
JJ Roberts, President of Liberia, 1847 (Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG through Getty Pictures)
Whereas Indigenous leaders resisted American makes an attempt to buy land, the new child nation was created after a US Navy officer coerced a neighborhood ruler to promote a strip of land to ACS. Its capital was named Monrovia after the US’s fifth president, James Monroe, who had procured authorities cash for the challenge.
It’s estimated that, in whole, about 12,000 previously enslaved Black People immigrated to Liberia between 1820 and 1861.
Who makes up the inhabitants?
African People and their descendants, often known as Americo-Liberians, dominated the federal government of Liberia because of their ties with the US authorities, by way of which they have been in a position to conduct commerce, till a navy coup ended their affect in 1980.
Regardless of being a minority of about 5 % of the overall inhabitants in Liberia, from the beginning of the republic, they largely excluded the Indigenous African inhabitants from any significant participation within the political lifetime of the nation.
Indigenous individuals who had migrated from western Sudan within the late Center Ages represent a majority of the inhabitants. A smaller portion additionally migrated from neighbouring western African states in the course of the anti-slave-trade marketing campaign and European colonial rule within the 1800s.
In newer years, it has opened its doorways to refugees from neighbouring international locations, particularly from the Ivory Coast, the place civil conflict broke out in 2002 and 2011.
What’s the official language of Liberia?
English is Liberia’s official language, although greater than two dozen Indigenous languages are spoken there as effectively.
Americo-Liberians, who dominated political energy till the navy coup in 1980, imposed English because the generally spoken language once they based the republic in 1847.
Different languages spoken by Liberia’s Indigenous ethnic teams fall below three essential teams, all belonging to the Niger-Congo language household: the Mande, Kwa and Mel languages.
A member of a burial group holds bullet casings and a bullet whereas looking to exhume the stays of former Liberian President William R Tolbert, assassinated throughout a coup in 1980, and people of 13 officers from his authorities, in Monrovia, Liberia, on February 20, 2025 (Carielle Doe/Reuters)
What brought about the civil wars in Liberia?
Liberia has endured two main civil wars in newer a long time. The nation’s conflicts have been deeply rooted in ethnic divisions.
Samuel Doe, a member of the Indigenous Krahn ethnic group, led a navy coup in 1980, which overthrew the Americo-Liberian authorities and put an finish to its political dominance marked by ethnic inequalities. Liberian President William R Tolbert was assassinated in the course of the coup.
Nonetheless, Doe ushered in a interval of authoritarianism and human rights abuses that led to the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars.
The primary conflict erupted in 1989, when Charles Taylor, a descendant of freed American slaves, launched an armed insurrection in opposition to Doe, which killed greater than 200,000 individuals and displaced hundreds of thousands.
A second conflict broke out in 1999 when a insurgent group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), started a navy offensive to topple Taylor’s authorities with the assist of neighbouring Guinea.
The battle spilled over into Guinea and Sierra Leone however subsided in 2003 with the intervention of worldwide peacekeeping forces and Taylor’s resignation and exile.
Taylor was accused of human rights violations and indicted by a United Nations-sponsored war-crimes tribunal in 2003. He obtained a sentence of fifty years in jail.
What’s the state of affairs now?
Liberia has largely skilled political stability for the reason that second civil conflict ended. It held democratic elections in 2017, marking the primary peaceable switch of energy since 1944.
Boakai was elected president in 2023 with 50.64 % of the vote for a six-year time period, defeating former worldwide soccer star George Weah.
Vines, from Chatham Home, mentioned: “Ethnicity is much less vital in Liberia right this moment and Americo-Liberians are rather a lot much less dominant.”
“Liberians nonetheless understand shut ties with the US,” particularly due to deep connections with many Inexperienced Card holders, Vines mentioned, however the important minimize of USAID funding to the African continent earlier this yr got here as a shock.
Throughout Wednesday’s White Home assembly with Trump, Boakai described Liberia as “a longtime pal of the US”.
“We consider in your coverage of creating America nice once more,” he advised Trump on the assembly earlier than advocating for US funding in his nation. “We simply wish to thanks a lot for this chance.”
Folks wait to vote at a polling station in the course of the presidential and parliamentary elections in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, on October 10, 2023 (Harry Browne/Anadolu through Getty Pictures)
Why did Trump meet the leaders of Liberia and different West African nations?
The 5 international locations whose leaders met Trump – specifically Liberia, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Senegal – possess untapped pure assets, together with uncommon earth minerals. The US president saluted them as “very vibrant locations with very beneficial land, nice minerals, nice oil deposits and fantastic individuals”.
Vines mentioned Boakai’s presence on the White Home was “opportunistic”, because the Liberian president was already on a visit to the US, relatively than a mirrored image of deep historic ties between the 2 nations.
Africa has turn into a battleground for international affect within the US-China geopolitical rivalry, however Trump is understood for his apparently dismissive remarks in regards to the continent.
Throughout his first time period as president, Trump brought about outrage after criticising immigration to his nation from El Salvador, Haiti and the African continent, which he reportedly dubbed “s***gap international locations”.
The present Trump administration can also be recognized to be looking for to deport individuals who have outstayed their visas or are in any other case within the US illegally to West African international locations keen to obtain them.
In response to some media reviews, a plan was introduced at Wednesday’s assembly, however it stays unclear what Trump supplied in trade and whether or not any leaders have been keen to just accept his supply.
