By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Lesotho’s government has expressed shock over a remark by US President Donald Trump in which he was quoted as saying that “nobody has ever heard of” the southern African nation.
During his address to the US Congress in his first speech since his return to the Oval Office on 20 January, Trump made the reference as he listed foreign aid cuts made to what he described as wasteful expenditure.
“Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump said, a remark that elicited laughter from some US lawmakers.
But Lesotho enjoyed “warm and cordial” relations with the US, the BBC quoted a spokesperson for Lesotho’s foreign affairs department as saying.
Lesotho is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the US’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which grants favourable trade access to some countries to promote their economic growth.
According to the US government, the two countries traded goods worth $240m (£187m) in 2024, mostly exports from Lesotho to the US, particularly in textiles and clothing.
Lesotho’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane said it was “shocking” to hear a head of state “refer to another sovereign state in that manner”.
“To my surprise, ‘the country that nobody has heard of’ is the country where the US has a permanent mission,” Mr Mpotjoane told the BBC.
“Lesotho 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’ve accommodated here in Maseru.”
Lesotho officials dismissed Trump’s remarks as “off the cuff” and a “political statement”, adding that they were “uncalled-for” given the good relations between the two nations.
“We maintain very warm and cordial relations with the US. They’ve got a mission in Maseru, and we also have [one] in Washington,” foreign affairs spokesperson Kutloano Pheko said.
Many organisations, mostly non-governmental, are suffering a funding deficit after the Trump administration announced a permanent end to the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), aming to reduce governance costs.
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.
