Black Panther’s Fictional Country Wakanda Listed By US Govt As Official Free Trade Partner, Later Removed

Black Panther’s Fictional Country Wakanda Was Removed As A U.S. Free Trade Partner On U.S. Department of Agriculture Site

Wakanda has been removed as a free trade partner for the United States.

The fictional country that was most recently featured in the epic Black Panther film in 2018, was named as a free trade agreement partner on the Agricultural Tariff Tracker, which is managed by the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It was removed Wednesday (Dec. 18) after Francis Tseng, a member of the Jain Family Institute spotted the country as a trade partner earlier that day, according to reports. Francis Tseng was looking up the impact trade deal tariffs have on food distribution in the respective countries.

“I definitely did a double-take. I Googled Wakanda to make sure it was actually fiction, and I wasn’t misremembering. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.”

Interestingly enough, there were multiple groups, like vegetables and coffee beans, associated with the country on the site. The site added that the

“information displayed is not official and should only be used as a general reference. Each importing countries customs office maintains the right for final determination of tariff treatment.”

The USDA said in a statement that it put Wakanda on the list to test the tracker’s system but simply forgot to take it down.

A representative for the USDA, Mike Illenberg, said,

“Over the past few weeks, the Foreign Agricultural Service staff who maintain the Tariff Tracker have been using test files to ensure that the system is running properly. The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down.”

Other actual nations like Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, and the Dominican Republic have remained on the list.

What do you think about Wakanda being listed as a trade partner for the U.S.? Tell us in the comments.