Lesotho LGBTQ+ organisation says it has not received $8 million from US as claimed by Trump

A Lesotho LGBTQ+ rights organisation says that it did not receive eight million dollars in funding from the US, despite Donald Trump’s recent claim. 

During his presidential address to Congress on Tuesday (4 March) Trump made a claim about Lesotho’s main LGBTQ+ rights organisation, the People’s Matrix. 

“Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho”, he said of the organisation, adding that “nobody has ever heard” of the country in Southern Africa. 

‘We do not have such moneys’

In response, People’s Matrix spokesperson Tampose Mothopeng alleged that Trump’s claim was baseless. They told AFP: “We are literally not receiving grants from the US. 

“We have no idea of the allocation of eight million dollars. We do not know who received or is going to receive that money.

“We do not have such moneys or a contract that would even reach a quarter of half of that money.” 

As reported by the Daily Mail, the US government’s foreign assistance website indicated that around $120 million had been spent on “health and population” programmes in the country last year, including $43.5 million to tackle HIV/AIDS. The site does not list any financial support for LGBTQ+ rights in Lesotho.

Lesotho’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane also weighed in on the president’s comments, saying it was “shocking” to hear the president “refer to another sovereign state in that manner.”

“To my surprise, ‘the country that nobody has heard of’ is the country where the U.S. has a permanent mission,” Mpotjoane told AFP. “Lesotho is a member of the UN and of a number of other international bodies. And the U.S. has an embassy here and [there are] a number of U.S. organizations we’ve accommodated here in Maseru.”

Trump’s Lesotho claim follows White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt falsely stating that international development agency USAID had spent $47,000 funding a trans opera in Colombia, stoking further outrage.

USAID has been under heavy attack since Trump’s inauguration. In February, Trump attacked the aid agency’s leadership saying they were a “bunch of radical lunatics.” Elon Musk also took to X to describe the agency as “evil” and a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”

Musk also tweeted a baseless claim that USAID “funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.”

During his two hour Congress address on Tuesday, Trump also stood by a series of anti-trans executive orders, ranted about “transgender mice,” and faced a protest staged by Democrats, who waved “Musk Steals” and “Save Medicaid” signs as he spoke before walking out mid-speech in a bid to protest his actions.

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