Every year, the land of the free prioritises citizens from certain countries - allocating a number of visas to each - should they wish to apply to win a green card, or permanent residence in the US.
Winning the lottery short circuits a tedious and often expensive process - that invariably involves specialist immigration lawyers.
Trump, though, obviously has an aversion to some countries. Haiti, in the Caribbean, was one of the non-African countries that he mentioned as a "shit hole". It’s doubly unfortunate because yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200 000 people.
Last year, he derogatorily remarked that all Haitian immigrants to the US had Aids.
At the same meeting he also, apparently, complained that if America let Nigerians in “they wouldn’t go back to their huts”.
Trump’s entitled to his views. Free speech is a cornerstone of the US constitution, it’s just terribly sad that his bigotry is articulated in his role as president of that great country, one which regards itself as a bastion for the rest of the world.
The bottom line is that if you want to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.
If you want to play the world’s policeman then you have to provide solutions and opportunities, which is where support for international efforts comes in - and a diversity immigration lottery allowing those who live in places where there is little opportunity and even less hope, the chance of a better life where there is ostensibly that opportunity.
The good news is that Trump’s views - which will resonate with Afrophobes in his own country, and in Europe, as well as in certain racist circles here at home - are not the views of the broader US populace.
The damage, though, has been done.
But those of us who live in glass houses can’t throw stones, we also have a president who has done much to embarrass us in the eyes of the world.
South Africa is nowhere near the beacon for the world that it was during Nelson Mandela’s tenure - and it won’t be until we repair the damage that has been wrought since.
Trump is living proof of a system that is flawed - yet his supporters, and they are many, will speak highly and eloquently of all the good he has done for ordinary Americans, the fact that he has not broken a single campaign promise or indeed done nothing that he had not promised he would do while on the stump.
They are probably right, but they ignore the terrible damage he is doing to America’s image in the world in the process.
The US was a developing country too once, built on the backs of people forcibly taken from Africa and enslaved to plantation owners and other business people.
You’d expect a little more respect for the continent given that disgraceful and ineradicable past, you’d expect a little bit more help, financial and otherwise, to that continent - not as reparations but because it’s the right thing to do.
Trump is no ordinary president though. He’s broken the mould, demeaned his office and diminished his country’s image.
We’re all the poorer for that, not just the US.