Lesotho was taken mocked by US President Donald Trump’s southern African nation, its Foreign Minister said on Wednesday, as the country’s main LGBTQ Rights Organization refused to receive money from Washington.
Trump called Lesotho a country, “Nobody has ever heard of” as he defended the Congress on his widespread cuts during a address on Tuesday.
He sang a previous US aid project of $ eight million “to promote LGBTQI+ at the African Nation of Lesotho.
Republican MPs laughed and said, “Nobody has ever heard,”
The Lesotho government was “shocked and embarrassed” with the comments, Foreign Minister Legon Moptogen told AFP.
“We did not expect the head of the state to refer to another sovereign nation in this way,” he said.
The capital in the US has an embassy in Maseru, and American volunteers serve at the popular peace core program.
“We are not taking the matter lightly,” Mpotjoane said, saying that they will send an official protest letter to Washington.
– ‘We are not getting’
What accurate program Trump was referring to remained unclear on Wednesday.
Lesotho’s chief LGBTQ Rights Organization, The People’s Matrix refused to receive $ eight million in US funding.
“We are not truly not receiving grants from America,” People’s Matrix spokesman Tampose Moothopeng told AFP.
“We have no idea of allocation of eight million (dollars),” he said. “We do not know who has received or attained that money.”
He said, “We do not have such money or contracts that will reach half of that money.”
The US government’s foreign aid website did not list any financial assistance for LGBTQ rights at Lesotho, a country of 2.3 million people.
Instead, it indicated that in 2024, about $ 120 million was spent on “health and population” programs in the country, including $ 43.5 million to deal with HIV/AIDS.
The small mountainous state surrounded by South Africa is one of the highest rates of disease in the world, with about four adults HIV positive.
The US has performed over $ 630 million for anti-HIV/AIDS efforts in Lesotho since 2006, according to the US Embassy.
More than 30 non-governmental organizations warned in mid-February that the country’s HIV programs were at risk of collapse after loss of American foreign aid.
On Wednesday morning, Lesotho residents confused Trump’s jab in their country.
“Have you ever heard of the kingdom in the sky? It seems, very busy golfing to notice,” journalist and activist Kananelo Boloate posted on social media platform X.
He said, “Lesotho’s only country in the world is completely above a height of 1,000 meters, which is more than your approval rating,” he posted, “We are here, we are proud, and we are not your punkline.”
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
