Donald Trump’s bid to use America’s economic might to bully nations into cowering to their demands got off to a hilarious start after the White House imposed sanctions on a New York university.
Washington issued a press release on Sunday evening (26/1) announcing 25 per cent tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after its president barred two US military planes carrying deported migrants from landing in the country.
Trump said the tariffs “on all goods” coming into the US from Colombia would be put in place “immediately”, and in one week, the 25 per cent tariffs would be raised to 50 per cent.
Colombian president Gustavo Petro responded by saying he would impose retaliatory tariffs of 25 per cent on the US, telling Trump in a post on X: “Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world.”
His post was quickly followed by an AI-generated image showing the president in a fedora hat, alongside a sign reading FAFO, which usually stands for “f*** around, find out”.
Columbia… University
But the White House quickly found itself at the centre of social media ridicule after people noticed a glaring error in the press release.
Trump’s post on Truth Social about the sanctions mistakenly referred to the South American nation of Colombia as “Columbia,” the name of the New York-based university.
Pekka Kallioniemi posted: “Why is Trump imposing tariffs against a university in NY? Too much woke and DEI hires?”
While Sean Casten added: “Coffee prices are about to go up because Trump’s feelings got hurt by a country he doesn’t know how to spell.”
Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for ‘The Washington Post’, added to the humour, saying, “I know Barron is going to NYU but it seems like a little much.”
And former Trump campaign aide A.J. Delgado didn’t hold back either, stating, “Did a WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE really misspell Colombia? I remember how much I had to proofread and correct BASIC mistakes in drafts by others on the 2016 Campaign but this is… wow.” She concluded, “Only the dumbest of the dumb work in this White House.”
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