White House staff made an embarrassing blunder while President Donald Trump was sitting down with leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, when they mistakingly referred to Iraqi President Barham Salih as the president of Iran.
“President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the President of the Republic of Iran”, read the title of a YouTube video published by the White House.
Iraq’s President identified as the President *of Iran* - quite the blunder from the White House. Or was it intentional. pic.twitter.com/hy2IjYgEZg
— Ranj Alaaldin (@RanjAlaaldin) January 22, 2020
However, Trump is clearly heard introducing his counterpart during the sit-down meeting as “the president of Iraq” within 3 seconds of the clip.
This is not the first time a title of one Trump's official social media posts has mistakenly muddled up two distinct leaders.
After the G-20 summit in Germany concluded in July 2017, Trump's official Instagram captioned a photo of his meeting with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore as the “President Trump and the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo".
Maybe he was confused by Singapore's flag, which has the same colours as Indonesia's. But no, Mr Trump, Lee Hsien Loong is not Jokowi. pic.twitter.com/KY07AfBtKw
— Loh Chee Kong (@ck3012) July 8, 2017
The White House has since realized its mistake and changed the video of the Iraq-US talk to the correct title on Wednesday morning.
Tensions have arisen between the US and Iraq after the Iraqi parliament voted to expel all US troops following the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani on the orders of President Trump.
