Melania Trump’s tour of Africa was as tone deaf as you’d expect – but she wasn’t as disastrous a diplomat as her husband

“Melania Trump bumped by elephant” went the headlines above images of the First Lady being barged by an overexcited, wrinkled, orange-hued baby elephant on a trip to Africa. How thoughtful, then, that her Kenyan hosts wanted to make her feel so at home.

Melania has asked the media why they’ve just been talking about her clothes rather than the importance of her visit.

Well, when a Slovenian former supermodel turns up looking like she’s auditioning for a remake of Out of Africa or to be the next Bond girl, it’s pretty difficult to avoid discussing “the optics”. Especially when some of it – the khaki jodhpurs, riding boots and, goodness gracious, a pith helmet – harks back to the colonial era of white supremacy. All she needed was Roger Moore in a white tuxedo and she’d be all set for some caper with dictators in leopard skin hats, mercenaries and blood diamonds.

As a fashion shoot it all looked very classy: as an exercise in cultural sensitivity, maybe less accomplished.

I was much struck too by a placard among the ladies in bright chitenges who turned out for her in Malawi, a poor country even by sub-Saharan standards. #notashithole was the slogan, a reference to Donald Trump’s notorious views on migration from African nations, and, in its way, a backhanded acknowledgement that she was there for show, to build a little goodwill and mend fences. She did, too.

Melania said a few careful things about the Kavanaugh affair, visited the obligatory orphanages, went on safari and inspected the work of US aid agencies. She didn’t say anything insulting, even if her outfits were distracting. As a diplomat she is at least better than her baby elephant husband.

When she gets back to the White House she can tell the president about all the trade and development opportunities there are in capitalism’s next frontier. But, like that junior jumbo she bumped into, she’ll need to attract his attention first.

Yours,

Sean O’Grady

Associate Editor