Mythical Wakanda shows up as a U.S. trade partner on USDA site

It would be fantastic to have access to vibranium or the technology that would allow us to fit a change of clothing in a necklace, but it’s not happening. Even though Wakanda is forever, the United States’ free trade agreement with the fictional country ended Wednesday.

Confused? Here’s what happened.

While testing the Agricultural Tariff Tracker, which is maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, Wakanda was listed as a free trade agreement partner, NBC News reported.

“Over the past few weeks, the Foreign Agricultural Service staff who maintain the Tariff Tracker have been using test files to ensure that the system is running properly,” Mike Illenberg, a USDA spokesman, told NBC News in an email. “The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down.”

Wakanda apparently appeared on the tracker sometime after June 10, NBC reported, but wasn’t discovered until Wednesday.

Francis Tseng, a fellow at the Jain Family Institute, was doing research when he came across the tracker.

“I definitely did a double take,” he told NBC. “I Googled Wakanda to make sure it was actually fiction, and I wasn’t misremembering. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.”

Those who didn’t read the Marvel comic books were introduced to Wakanda when Atlanta-filmed “Black Panther” hit the big screen and became a blockbuster. The once hidden African kingdom, ruled by T’Challa (aka Black Panther), was ahead of the world in technology.