“Thank you. And such good English,” the White man said to the Black man. “Such beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where?” the incredulous American President continued, smiling, looking at the Black man, the President of Liberia. President Joseph Boakai and four other West African presidents were discussing trade matters in the Oval Office.

Many observers have taken umbrage at the foregoing exchange. Trump was condescending to the Black man, they say. I, for one, saw it as a moment pregnant with possibilities to tease out nuance and meaning: both personal and historical. I always find President Trump’s actions and words a source of much to be learned — about the people who raised him, and where he comes from in this society.

It’s also intriguing to think that sometimes today’s events seem to reflect and echo the past. As a boy, in Kenya’s colonial days, I did a stint as a nurse’s aide in a Mombasa hospital. Seeking to improve my lot in life, I asked the English matron — head nurse — for a letter of recommendation.

“He speaks good English, and shows signs of intelligence,” she wrote about me. That sentence, written a lifetime ago, has had unending reverberations in my life. I still remember those words, her opinion of a poor Black boy: speaking English well, signified intelligence. I was grateful; to receive anything resembling approval from a white person in those colonial days meant the world to us.

I was reminded of “he shows signs of intelligence” as Trump spoke of Joseph Boakai’s, mastery of the English language — a surprise to Trump, who clearly didn’t know much about Liberia, and for that matter, the other four Presidents’ countries: Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, and Senegal. Discounting Trump’s previous description of the whole African continent as a “sh-thole,” one wishes he would take time to acquaint himself with the countries and people he meets.

It is disappointing that the president of the United States lacks knowledge of Liberia’s history — a country established for freed Black American slaves in 1820 to 1843 by the American Colonization Society. Liberia has maintained close relationship with the United States since it declared its independence in 1847. This helped Liberia escape the 19th-century European Scramble for Africa, when European colonial powers carved up the continent into numerous colonies. With US’s protection, Liberia maintained its freedom. As did Ethiopia.

A few interesting points about Liberia: its flag was modeled after the US Stars and Stripes and contains eleven horizontal stripes that alternate between red and white. The flag’s canton features a blue field square with a white star. Monrovia, the nation’s capital was named after US President James Monroe. Americo-Liberians governed Liberia from 1847 — 1980. A civil war ended the minority Americo-Liberians’ rule. English has been the official language since Liberia’s inception, hence President Boakai’s beautiful English and evidence of intelligence.

It is unfortunate our president did not know most of these facts. Indeed, knowledge and understanding of our closest friends as well as our adversaries reflects how this nation behaves towards them. It is near impossible to have a rational foreign policy without knowing the entities that are involved.

Going back to my English matron; she belonged to the ruling class in a British colony. For rulers, the exigencies of knowledge of the governed do not exist. That a native boy had the temerity to ask a White woman for a letter of reference was surprising, but it also distinguished the boy from the Black hoi polloi. You see, speaking good English made a Native seem more intelligent in the eyes of the colonialists.

The president of the United States occupies a special position from which the United States is judged. No matter what Trump’s supporters might think, this is important. The United States is not an island, and even though we are under an “America First” hegemony, it will only be for a short while.

President Trump’s bluster and desire to dominate everyone around him may be very satisfactory to him — for a while. It will never take the place of a good grounding in knowledge of world’s history, geopolitics and a way to diligently and diplomatically win friends. Sadly, for now, the Chinese continue silently and methodically to gather much of the world’s underdeveloped places. We who know the score, wish it were the reverse.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships; co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students ‘STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, a Huffington Post blogger, a past columnist for Denver dailies and is featured on the podcast, “Never Again.”