The President of the United States (POTUS) is meeting Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the White House today. In anticipation of the Singapore head of government’s visit, the POTUS released his agenda for the day on social media:
Interestingly, President Trump repeatedly referred to Prime Minister Lee as Prime Minister Loong in his post.
“Lee Hsien Loong” is a Chinese name, in which the first name is actually his surname and the remaining names are his first and middle name. President Trump calling PM Lee “Loong” is akin to someone calling the POTUS “President John.”
The POTUS calling PM Lee “Loong” suggests that he is not as familiar with the Singapore leader as former US President Barack Obama was.
https://theindependent.sg.sg/obamas-boo-boos-at-the-white-house-state-dinner-for-hsien-loong/
The gaffe riled up Singaporeans who took to the comments section to correct the POTUS. Their corrections, however, were a drop in the bucket. In over 1,500 comments on the post, only about 25 commenters tried to correct the President:
These are our favorite comments though 😉 :
It must be noted that this is not the first time the POTUS or his PR Team have made a social media blunder when referring to PM Lee:
https://theindependent.sg.sg/potus-trump-momentarily-confuses-pm-lee-for-indonesian-president-joko-widodo/
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UPDATE: The POTUS’ Facebook post was updated to reflect “Prime Minister Lee” instead of “Loong” some 12 hours later, around 7am SGT:
https://theindependent.sg.sg/us-singapore-relationship-has-never-been-closer-than-now-and-wont-ever-be-stronger-potus/