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America Ends Free Trade Agreement With Wakanda
The Sub-Saharan African nation Wakanda, home to King T’Challa, better known as the Black Panther, is trending on Twitter.
Up until Wednesday, the fictional East African country was included in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s online tariff tracker as a free trade partner with actual countries.
According to the department’s online tracker, ducks, donkeys, and dairy cows are among the list of goods that two nations apparently traded.
Wakanda first appeared in the Fantastic Four comic in 1966 and made a reappearance when Black Panther was adapted into an Oscar-winning film last year.
Remember reminding yourself after watching the movie Black Panther that Wakanda is a fictional place? Well, apparently it took the US a little longer to accept that unfortunate reality and only after the error was pointed out on Twitter by Francis Tseng.
Wakanda is listed as a US free trade partner on the USDA website?? pic.twitter.com/xcq1OFTIPh
— Francis Tseng (@frnsys) December 18, 2019
“The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down,” U.S.D.A spokesperson Mike Illenberg told the New York Times.
Francis Tseng, a New York-based software engineer who was looking up agricultural tariffs for a fellowship he was applying for, told Reuters that when he first saw Wakanda on the list, he got “very confused”: “[I] thought I misremembered the country from the movie and got it confused with something else.”
After the US took it down, Tseng added, “well, the USDA took Wakanda off the list. guess we’re in a trade war with them too.”
well, the USDA took Wakanda off the list. guess we’re in a trade war with them too https://t.co/uee8f0WqiS https://t.co/kTYBjIAvfe
— Francis Tseng (@frnsys) December 18, 2019
Others chimed in.
Wakanda probably got better trade terms than the UK will… https://t.co/WqNE49aHJ8
— Will Higgins (@_willhiggins) December 19, 2019
A story tragically overlooked due to the impeachment drama. Where now will our country turn for vibranium? https://t.co/gfkOJIOnzz
— Marcus Harrison Green (@mhgreen3000) December 19, 2019