If international diplomacy is a stage, Donald Trump has once again played the role of the unintentional comic relief. New footage from the European Political Community summit in Copenhagen shows a group of European leaders sharing a chuckle at the president’s expense after his latest geography slip-up. The mix-up in question? Confusing Armenia with Albania. These are two countries (nearly 1,500 miles apart) with no direct stake in the peace deal that Donald Trump keeps touting as his biggest diplomatic win.
For months, Donald Trump has been campaigning on his claim that he brokered peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, ending nearly four decades of fighting. Allies have even floated the idea of him receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. The only problem is that Trump can’t remember which countries were at the table. He has bragged about bringing “Albania and Azerbaijan” together and even coined a new nation altogether: “Aberbaijan.” The slip finally boiled over into outright mockery at Thursday’s Copenhagen gathering.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seized the moment to rib French President Emmanuel Macron, saying:
“You should make an apology to us, because you didn’t congratulate us on the peace deal that President Trump made between Albania and Azerbaijan.”
Albanian PM Edi Rama to Macron: “You should congratulate us for the peace deal that President Trump made between Albania and Azerbaijan.
Yeah, and he [Trump] worked very hard.”
At least they are having a good laugh about war that never happened 😁pic.twitter.com/kQJo5inQFz
— Kate from Kharkiv (@BohuslavskaKate) October 2, 2025
Rama’s comment made President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan crack up. Macron played along and gave Rama a “I’m sorry for that” pat on the cheek. The exchange is gold for those who argue that foreign leaders don’t take Trump seriously.
In August, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’d witnessed world leaders “laughing behind his back.” And Thursday’s footage seems to back him up! However, this gaffe isn’t Donald Trump’s first brush with map mishaps. In September, he claimed to have “settled Aber-baijan and Albania” during a press conference with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
On Fox News, he declared he had ended “wars that [were] unsolvable” by bringing “Azerbaijan and Albania” together. But the confusion stretches further back. In 2023, Donald Trump famously introduced Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as “the leader of Turkey” and insisted Hungary shared a border with Russia (it doesn’t). In August, he announced he was heading “to Russia” for a summit with Vladimir Putin.
The actual meeting was held…in Alaska.
This would be slapstick if it weren’t paired with Trump’s Nobel Prize campaigning.
The White House has touted him as a globe-trotting peacemaker, claiming credit for never-mentioned de-escalations like cooling tensions between India and Pakistan. India publicly dismissed that boast. Jokes may appear harmless, but diplomacy calls for honesty and respect; confusion about other nations may upset allies who wish to be considered on the world stage. Leaders like Macron, Rama, and Aliyev seem to be laughing at Donald Trump rather than with him, confirming that he is out of his depth.
There have been other instances of world leaders laughing at Donald Trump. A 2019 Buckingham Palace reception video went viral, with Canada’s Justin Trudeau, France’s Emmanuel Macron, and the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson teasing Trump. When he talked about successes his audience thought were impossible during his speech at the UN a year earlier, diplomatic staff openly laughed.
All we see is that Donald Trump’s opponents are replaying the Copenhagen moment now!
NEXT UP: Trump Blames His Rivals for Mass Firing He’s Poised to Order
