Lesotho protests Trump’s mockery

The Lesotho Government is to send an official protest letter to Washington after US President Donald Trump mocked the nation during his address to Congress on Tuesday. According to The Guardian, Foreign Minister Lejone Mpotjoane told AFP that the country was ‘not taking this matter lightly’. Lesotho was taken aback when Trump said ‘nobody has ever heard of’ the country when he defended his sweeping cuts in aid during the address, and as Republican lawmakers laughed at his comments. He singled out a past US aid project of ‘eight m i l l i o n dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho’. On Wednesday, the Lesotho Government said it was ‘shocked and embarrassed’ by the comments. ‘We did not expect a head of state to refer to another sovereign nation in such a manner,’ said Mpotjoane. The US has an embassy in the capital Maseru, and American volunteers serve in the popular Peace Corps programme. The kingdom has the second-highest level of HIV infection of the world, with almost one in four adults HIV-positive. The US has committed more than $630m since 2006 to anti-HIV/Aids efforts in Lesotho, according to the US Embassy there. More than 30 NGOs warned in mid-February that the country’s HIV programmes were at risk of collapse after the loss of US foreign aid.

Full report in The Guardian