Wakanda Listed As Trade Partner To US

An American agency listed Wakanda, the fictional country in the hit superhero movie Black Panther, as a trade partner.

A spokesperson for the United States Department of Agriculture said the fictional east African country was added to the list of trade partners by mistake.

The glitch was first noticed by Francis Tseng of the Jain Family Institute on Wednesday.

“I was trying to figure out whether this is someone at the USDA making a joke or if it’s a developer who accidentally left it in, but I’m not sure,” he said.

Wakanda has since been removed from the USDA website.

Wakanda is listed as a US free trade partner on the USDA website?? pic.twitter.com/xcq1OFTIPh

— Francis Tseng (@frnsys) December 18, 2019

“The foreign agricultural service staff who maintain the tariff tracker have been using test files to ensure that the system is running properly,” Mike Illenberg, a USDA spokesperson said.

“The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down.”

Wakanda was listed as exporting horses, cows, yellow potatoes and sheep, goats and frozen Chinese water chestnuts turkeys to the United States.

The website, however, says 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.”