BIDEN SLIPS UP ON NAME OF SUMMIT HOST CAMBODIA, ADDRESSES IT AS ‘COLOMBIA’

PHNOM PENH: US President Joe Biden on Saturday referred to Cambodia, which is hosting an international summit led by Southeast Asian leaders, as Colombia.

“Now t h a t we ’ r e b a c k together here in Cambodia, I look forward to building even stronger progress than we’ve already made, and I want to thank the Prime Minister of Colombia for his leadership as Asean chair and for hosting all of us,” Biden said while meeting his Asean counterparts.

He was referring to Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia.

Biden, who turns 80 this month, has been known as a gaffe machine for much of his storied career in Washington.

Biden, who is on a whirlwind trip with stops at the COP27 in Egypt, Asean in Phnom Penh and the G20 summit in Indonesia, made a similar slip-up while speaking to reporters at the White House recently.

The US president told reporters he was “heading over to Colombia”, before quickly correcting himself to say “I mean Cambodia”.