Lesotho Reacts After Donald Trump Says Nobody Knows the Country

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Lesotho was surprised by President Donald Trump’s latest take.

After the president shared in his March 4 address to Congress that he had cut $8 million of LGBTQI+ aid to the South African country, remarking that it was a nation “nobody has ever heard of,” Lesotho’s foreign affairs minister fired back.

As Lejone Mpotjoane told the BBC in a March 5 interview, “To my surprise, ‘the country that nobody has heard of’ is the country where the U.S. has a permanent mission.”

Mpotjoane added that it was “shocking” to hear the president “refer to another sovereign state in that manner.”

The foreign affair’s minister of the African country—which has had relations with the United States since the 1960s, per the U.S. Department of State—emphasized that Lesotho is “a member of the UN and of a number of other international bodies,” adding that the U.S. not only has an embassy in the country but also has a number of additional organizations centered in its capital Maseru.

The country now plans to send a letter of protest to Washington regarding Trump’s comment, he told

Agence France Presse, adding, “We’re not taking this matter lightly."

Meanwhile, fans of the Royal family will naturally be familiar with Lesotho. After all, Prince Harry regularly visits the country and even founded a charity, Sentebale—which helps children and adolescents living with HIV and AIDS—with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho.

Trump’s comment on Lesotho was just one controversy that occurred during his lengthy address—the longest in over 60 years, per CBS News. Democratic representative Al Green was escorted from the chamber after interrupting Trump amid his long list of budget cuts.

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Later, the representative told NBC News outside the chamber that as a “person of conscience,” he believes Trump “has done things that I think we cannot allow to continue.”

Green noted he was “triggered” to interrupt the president after he claimed he had a mandate to cut Medicaid, adding, “He doesn’t have a mandate to cut health care from poor people.”

(E! News and NBC News are both a part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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