The fictional nation of Wakanda was listed as an official free trade partner on the Agricultural Tariff Tracker, which is maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. The faulty listing was removed Wednesday, according to NBC News, but not before the internet got its hands on the error.

Wakanda is the home country of Marvel Comics superhero Black Panther and was popularized by the 2018 film.

A spokesperson for the USDA issued a statement, saying the information regarding Wakanda was part of a set of test files, which have been removed from the site.


"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, said over email to NBC. "The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down."

The error was first brought to the public's attention by Francis Tseng, an associate of the Jain Family Institute who discovered the discrepancy while researching how trade deal tariffs affect food distribution and hunger in those countries.

“I definitely did a double take,” Tseng said to NBC News. “I googled Wakanda to make sure it was actually fiction, and I wasn’t misremembering. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.”

Once news broke of the Vibranium-rich nation's inclusion, commenters were quick to take to social media to share their excitement about the long-hidden nation.

Marvel has yet to comment on the country's inclusion. Luckily, less fictional nations, like Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama and Peru, are still included on the list.

black PantherMarvel StudiosTrump administrationUSDA