Spanish language White House website yet to materialise a year after Trump administration promised one - Independent

10/2/2018

Spanish language White House website yet to materialise a year after Trump administration promised one

Articles in the language spoken by one-in-five US residents were removed from official webpage when president took office

Tom Barnes

The Trump administration said a Spanish language White House website would launch at the end of 2017 Getty

The White House website has yet to produce any Spanish-language content a year into Donald Trump’s presidency, despite his administration's promises to the contrary.

Spanish articles were removed from the official site when Mr Trump took office in January 2017, in a departure of policy from the previous two administrations, which both published content in the language.

The US is now lagging behind Iran and even reclusive North Korea in terms of its Spanish language offerings, with both regimes providing official content for Spanish speakers.

A year ago, then-presidential press secretary Sean Spicer said content had been deleted because IT staff were “working overtime” to develop a new Spanish site.

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In July, the White House director of media affairs, Helen Aguirre Ferre, said she expected a website in the language, which is spoken by one-in-five people in the US, to launch at the end of 2017.

However, Ms Aguirre Ferre has now declined to confirm whether the administration still has plans for a Spanish language website.

Javier Palomarez, president of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the absence of a White House webpage in Spanish “sends a very troubling message".

“There are over four million Hispanic-American entrepreneurs and businesspeople in this country, many of whom are receptive to the administration’s pro-business agenda,” Mr Palomarez said.

“If they made even a little effort to communicate and engage with the Latino community, perhaps they would win a few of them over.”

Latinos became the largest minority in the US during the presidency of George W Bush, when Spanish language content was added to the White House website for the first time.

The Obama White House also produced Spanish articles geared towards Latinos on topics such as immigration, health issues, banking and veterans’ affairs.

However, Mr Trump’s relationship with Latino voters has been damaged by several controversies since his entry into politics.

During his election campaign, he castigated Republican rival Jeb Bush for answering a reporter’s question in Spanish, saying he should “set the example” by speaking English in the US.

The President also turned off large portions of the Hispanic electorate with anti-immigration rhetoric, claiming many Mexican immigrants were “criminals” and “rapists.”

The Trump White House does keep a Spanish Twitter account, @LaCasaBlanca, but it has only issued 200 tweets since January 2017, compared with 3,200 from the English version over the same period.