I was prepared to almost defend them if the photo had been of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, since he has more de facto power in Vietnam than the President does and you can kinda see how that mistake would have been made. Even then it would have been an awful blunder that someone whose literal job is to represent his country to the leaders of other countries shouldn’t be making (and neither should his PR team), but you could follow how it happened.
But it’s not even that. It’s the Chairman of the National Assembly. The equivalent of the US Speaker of the House. Pretty indefensible blunder.
This is a massive diplomatic error from the US government. In fact, it came from the US government Twitter handle @POTUS. Just because an aide made the issue doesn’t make this issue not reflect poorly on the US.
since he has more de facto power in Vietnam than the President does
I get what you are saying, but I would expect whoever runs the US President’s social media accounts to understand that ‘President’ is a figurehead position in a lot of countries. Our President probably has less actual power than our PM, Speaker, (federal) ministers and even the Vice-President.
I was prepared to almost defend them if the photo had been of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, since he has more de facto power in Vietnam than the President does and you can kinda see how that mistake would have been made. Even then it would have been an awful blunder that someone whose literal job is to represent his country to the leaders of other countries shouldn’t be making (and neither should his PR team), but you could follow how it happened.
But it’s not even that. It’s the Chairman of the National Assembly. The equivalent of the US Speaker of the House. Pretty indefensible blunder.
Yeah whatever aide is in charge of this probably got quite the talking-to!
This is a massive diplomatic error from the US government. In fact, it came from the US government Twitter handle @POTUS. Just because an aide made the issue doesn’t make this issue not reflect poorly on the US.
Where in my reply did I say anything to the contrary?
I get what you are saying, but I would expect whoever runs the US President’s social media accounts to understand that ‘President’ is a figurehead position in a lot of countries. Our President probably has less actual power than our PM, Speaker, (federal) ministers and even the Vice-President.