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U.S. Government Lists Fictional Wakanda As Trade Partner On Website

U.S. Government Lists Fictional Wakanda As Trade Partner On Website

Wakanda
The U.S. Department of Agriculture listed Wakanda as a free-trade partner on its website despite it being a fictional country. In this Jan. 29, 2018 file photo, Chadwick Boseman, a cast member in “Black Panther,” poses at the premiere of the film at The Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File

A U.S. government department listed the fictional Kingdom of Wakanda as a free-trade partner on its website after it was listed “by accident” during a staff test.

Wakanda, the East African country that is home to Marvel Comics superhero the Black Panther, was listed on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, according to The New York Times.

The listing even included a detailed list of goods the U.S. apparently traded with Wakanda, including coffee, ducks, donkeys, and dairy cows.

The mistake was pointed out by Francis Tseng, a New York-based software engineer who was researching agricultural tariffs for a fellowship application, BBC reports.

Tseng was doing research related to fertilizer, open markets, and food production when he noticed the strange entry.

Wakanda first appeared in a Fantastic Four comic book in 1966 but it gained popularity in 2018 when the oscar-winning movie “Black Panther” was released.

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The mistaken entry, which was used in a test of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s tariff tracker, has since been removed but not before social media could react.

The removal of Wakanda from the website prompted Twitter users to joke that the U.S. is in a trade war with the fictional country.

https://twitter.com/BremainInSpain/status/1207632918719401984
https://twitter.com/fkariuki/status/1207645421478318081