US President Donald Trump made a brutal remark about a country very close to Prince Harry’s heart, and it’s likely upset the duke. It comes after Trump’s brutal insult towards Meghan Markle

Donald Trump has risked a new fallout with Prince Harry after ‘belittling’ one of the Duke’s favourite countries, Lesotho.

On Tuesday night, the US president gave a joint address to Congress, during which he listed the programs he has cut off from American financial aid in order to bring down the federal deficit.

“Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump brutally claimed, to some laughter from Republican lawmakers.

The Lesotho government is “shocked and embarrassed” by the comments, the foreign minister, Lejone Mpotjoane, told AFP. “We did not expect a head of state to refer to another sovereign nation in such a manner,” he said.

Trump’s remarks are also likely to have riled Harry, who has a strong connection to Lesotho. He is good friends with Prince Seeiso – the younger brother of the country’s current King Letsie III – and together the pair set up a charity in Lesotho – Sentebale, which means “forget me not”. The organisation, which they established in 2006, works with local communities in the country at grassroots level, helping young people affected by HIV/Aids.

Like the United Kingdom, Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy. This means that although it has a royal family, an elected prime minister runs the country. Harry first went to Lesotho in 2004 on his gap year when he was 19, and has returned to the country many times since then.

It comes after Trump issued a direct threat to Harry just last year, saying that if it was found that the prince had lied on his visa application about his drug-taking, he would take “appropriate action.’ There is nothing to suggest the duke has done this.

He later clarified that he would not seek to deport Harry – but took a brutal swipe at his wife Meghan. “I don’t want to do that,” Trump told the New York Post. “I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.”

Just recently, King Charles invited Trump to make a state visit to the UK later on this year. It’s a rare second invite for an American president; Trump made a state visit in his first term when Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally delivered the letter from the King at a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office just last week, with the president accepting the invite and saying that it would be an “honour” to visit the “fantastic” country. He added that King Charles was a “beautiful man, a wonderful man”.

Just hours after the handwritten letter was delivered, Harry appeared to take a swipe at Trump during a surprise appearance at the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles. He spoke about how billions of people were experiencing the “detrimental effect” when “basic morals and empathy are abandoned in favor of power and control”.

“Now this would be a great time to talk about how a sickness in leadership across sectors – from politics to tech – can have a detrimental effect on millions, if not billions, of people,” he said.

“When service to others is sacrificed for personal gain. When basic morals and empathy are abandoned in favor of power and control. But I’m not gonna get into all that now!”

President Trump has spoken publicly about his admiration for the royal family – and he previously accused the Sussexes of breaking the late Queen’s heart after they stepped down from royal life.

He said: “I think there was great disrespect to a person I got to know very well and like; the Queen. She was unbelievable, you know.

“I thought she was treated very disrespectfully by them. Although she wouldn’t show it because she was strong and smart, I imagine they broke her heart. The things that they were saying were so bad and so horrible and she was in her 90s and hearing this stuff. I think they broke her heart. I think they hurt her bad.”

The President further insisted that Harry and Meghan ”were very disrespectful to the royal family” when they decided to step down from their duties.