Trump Mocked for Not Knowing ‘What’ the Congo is After Claiming the Country is Sending Prisoners to the US

WASHINGTON, D.C. — April 17, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump is facing a wave of criticism after referring dismissively to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White House, where the two leaders discussed migration, border security, and global security.

While railing against what he described as unchecked immigration into the United States, Trump claimed that foreign governments were releasing criminals from their prisons and sending them abroad, without providing any evidence.

“They released jails, Giorgia, from all over the world… not just [from] South America, but all over the world—the Congo in Africa. Many, many people come from the Congo. I don’t know what that is, but they came from the Congo and all over the world they came in,” Trump said.

The remark—particularly the phrase “I don’t know what that is”—has drawn mockery from critics, and international observers, many of whom accused the former president of ignorance of basic geography.

Once he admitted that he ‘doesn’t know’ what the Republic of the Congo is, the President then dove head-first into a tirade about former President Joe Biden, who he slammed as ‘incompetent.’

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is Africa’s second-largest country by land area, home to more than 100 million people. It is rich in natural resources, including cobalt and copper—critical materials in the global clean energy transition—and plays a central role in Africa’s political and economic affairs.

Critics say the statement fits a pattern of condescending or derogatory remarks Trump has made about African nations in the past. In 2018, he was widely rebuked for reportedly referring to African countries as “shithole countries” during a closed-door immigration meeting.

Trump’s Administration has repeatedly made egregious claims about immigrants in the United States, even going as far as to deport one man to El Salvador despite the fact that he had no criminal record, and had broken no American law.

The Administration was ordered to return that man, Kilmar Ábrego García, by the US court system, but has chosen to openly defy that order, as García remains in custody in El Salvador.

The meeting with Prime Minister Meloni had been billed as a discussion on shared conservative values, including opposition to mass migration and a push for stronger national borders. Meloni and Trump expressed mutual support for tightening immigration enforcement, although their views diverged on global issues, particularly Ukraine.

For many, the Congo comment reinforced a broader perception: that Trump’s foreign policy lens remains shaped by a limited and sometimes dismissive view of the Global South.