Most federal leaders have a team of PR and image people to help them keep their foot out of their mouths. Whoever has this job in Argentina probably just got fired.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is in China for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help bolster trade ties between the two countries. But while here, and apparently using a VPN, she Tweeted a joke about Chinese accents.
The Tweet said:
The word “arroz” means rice, and “petroleo” means petroleum. She replaced the “r”‘s in these words with “l”s to mimic a Chinese accent, so the sentence basically reads: “Are they here only for the lice and petloleum?”
After being blasted for being racist, she tweeted an apology that said: “Sorry. You know what? It’s just that the ridiculousness and absurdity is so high, that it can only be understood through humor. If not, it’s very, very toxic.”
No word on whether Xi Jinping found it funny.