Summary
- Trump
called Alaska “Russia” at the summit. - Mistook
St. Petersburg’s historical name, Leningrad. - World
leaders joked about his geographic confusion. - Mentioned
traveling to Russia while in Alaska.
During Thursday’s European Political Community meeting in
Copenhagen, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was captured on camera making fun
of French President Emmanuel Macron and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
“You should make an apology … to us because you didn’t
congratulate us on the peace deal that President Trump made between Albania and
Azerbaijan,”
Rama told Macron, leading Aliyev to burst out laughing.
“I am sorry for that,”
Macron joked.
“I solved wars that was unsolvable. Azerbaijan and Albania,
it was going on for many, many years, I had the prime ministers and presidents
in my office,”
he said during an appearance on Fox News last month.
When discussing his attempts to ease the long-standing
tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Trump has frequently misidentified
Armenia and Albania.
Trump also ruined the name of one South Caucasus nation and
completely confused the other when he remarked,
“We settled Aber-baijan and Albania,”
during a joint press conference
with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
To be precise: The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed
to put an end to decades of conflict and deepen their relations with Washington
as part of an agreement mediated by Trump at the White House in August. The
Republican leader, who is running for a Nobel Peace Prize, praised the
agreement as a significant diplomatic win.
Since taking office again this year, he has made repeated
claims that he had mediated the end of seven conflicts, a claim that the
Associated Press has fact-checked and found to be untrue. The wars between
Egypt and Ethiopia and Serbia and Kosovo are among the conflicts that Trump has
claimed to have ended. Despite their differences, those nations have not lately
engaged in combat.
The White House’s assertion that Trump helped defuse
tensions with Pakistan in May has been denied by India.
The confusion between Armenia and Albania is not the first
time Trump has displayed a poor understanding of geography.
On the campaign road in 2023, he once made a mistake and
referred to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as “the leader of Turkey.” He
also claimed that his country had a “front” with Russia. (Hungary and Turkey
are not geographically next to Russia.)
And ahead of a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin
in August, Trump said, “We’re going to Russia. It’s going to be a big deal.”
The summit took place in Alaska, a U.S. state.
What exact remark sparked the joke among world leaders?
The additional comment that led to jokes being made with
other world leaders at the summit was U.S. President Donald Trump’s referencing
Alaska as Russia. He was saying there was a summit with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, which will be in an “Alaska meeting.”
To be more clear, Trump said he was “going to
Russia” for the meeting or that the summit was in Russia. Afterward, the
other world leaders shared a laugh about this behind the scenes.
This geography confusion over Alaska, which is a U.S. state
and originally purchased from Russia in 1867, became a funny running commentary
between the world leaders at the summit.
This also builds off a previous comment from Trump about how
he has made some mistakes or gaffes in representing the U.S. and in his public
speeches that have become a hallmark of his public persona.
