USA Lists Wakanda As One Of Its Free Trade Partners

Marvel Studios/PA Images

So, the US Department of Agriculture (UDSA) listed Wakanda as an actual free-trade partner, despite it being a fictional country, and we are LOL-ing. 

To those of you who have been living under a rock, Wakanda is the home to kick-ass Marvel character Black Panther, and isn’t a real country.

How you accidentally list a fictional country on an official website, I’ll never know. On the other hand, if some joker did this on purpose, then hats off to you my friend.

The hilarious discovery was found and shared by Twitter user @frynsys:

Among the commodities listed under Wakanda were ‘live asses’, ‘mules and hinnies’ and several other farm animals. Potatoes and chestnuts were also reportedly listed.

One very excited Twitter user said that it was Trump’s ‘GREATEST DEAL EVER’.

The fictional country was removed soon after US media queried it, prompting jokes that the countries had started a trade war.

Following the sad news that Wakanda had been taken down, heartbroken fans took to Twitter to express their sadness.

One person said: 

Damn Wakanda was going to be one of our free trade partners? I think we could prosper a lot with vibranium guys. So disappointed #WakandaForever 

Another Twitter user said: 

Might want to think about that, Wakanda has technologies we need.

USDA spokesman Mike Illenberg explained the awkward mistake:

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.

Wakanda first appeared in the Fantastic Four comic in 1966 and made its full debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe last year in the Oscar-winning Black Panther.

If the movie winning an Oscar wasn’t good enough, the action-packed film actually broke Academy history, with Ruth Carter becoming the first black person to win the award for Best Costume Design and Hannah Beachler taking home the prize for Best Production Design, making her the first black winner in that category.

Marvel Studios

On top of this, Black Panther broke several box office records, including being the highest-grossing solo superhero movie ever.

The film received 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, so if you haven’t already seen it – I strongly advise you do.

Wakanda Forever.

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Niamh Shackleton

Niamh Shackleton is a pint sized person and journalist at UNILAD. After studying Multimedia Journalism at the University of Salford, she did a year at Caters News Agency as a features writer in Birmingham before deciding that Manchester is (arguably) one of the best places in the world, and therefore moved back up north. She’s also UNILAD’s unofficial crazy animal lady.