Think Donald Trump is a bad president? He probably would have been an even worse geography teacher.
And he proved that in spades on Wednesday during a speech at the American Business Forum in Miami, when he confused the country of South Africa with the continent of South America.
“For generations, Miami has been a haven for those fleeing communist tyranny in South Africa,” Trump said. “If you take a look at what is going on in parts of South Africa. Look at what is going on in South Africa. Look at South America, what’s going on. We have a G20 meeting in South Africa. South Africa shouldn’t even be in the Gs anymore.”
There are many factual inaccuracies in Trump’s statement to go along with the obvious geographical gaffes.
For instance, South Africa has never had a communist government, so its citizens have never had to “flee communist tyranny” for Miami.
In fact, South Africans make up less than 0.03% of Miami’s population.
However, Miami has long been a port-of-call for people fleeing countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, which have had socialist governments in the past.
Trump’s diatribe against South Africa comes just days after his administration restricted the number of refugees admitted annually to the United States to 7,500, and most of those are white South Africans.
In addition, the U.S. military has made at least 13 strikes against alleged drug vessels since early September, killing about 57 people, including citizens of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, in the process.
Considering how hard it is for most people to confuse a country with a continent, it’s no surprise Trump was brutally mocked.
Of course, it’s not as if Trump has never proven himself to be geographically challenged previously.
Last month, Trump was ridiculed for falsely claiming Qatar and Iran are close neighbors when they are actually 500 miles from each other.
In August, he claimed he was meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in his home country, when the meeting actually took place in Alaska.
In 2018, he got schooled by social media after he appeared not to know the differences between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England during a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.