Tanzania: Donald Trump is roundly mocked for mispronouncing African nation

The Republican frontunner was making his first formal speech on foreign policy

It was Donald Trump’s first outing on the foreign policy circuit and plenty of people had things to say about the tycoon’s vision of America’s place in the world.

Yet amid both the praise and the panning, some people could not avoid having a little fun at Mr Trump’s rather strange pronunciation of "Tanzania".

Mr Trump is known for talking off the cuff. On Wednesday, delivering his speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, it appeared he was reading from a teleprompter; if so the teleprompter had apparently spelled the African nation as Tan-Zayneeya. He said it the way one normally pronounces the Australian island of Tasmania.

Lots of people took to social media to laugh at Mr Trump. And when he was asked whether he had heard the tycoon’s speech, White House spokesman Josh Earnest also had a joke with reporters

“Apparently the phonetics aren’t included on the teleprompter,” he said,

Accorrding to The Hill, Mr Earnest also pushed back against Trump’s claim that Cuban President Raúl Castro had snubbed Obama by not greeting him at the airport when he arrived last month for his historic trip to the island nation.

“It is most common for the president to be received by a lower-level official at the airpor, so the most senior official in the country can meet with the president more formally,” he said.