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You can’t make this up: Until roughly 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, the USDA listed Wakanda as a free-trade partner of the United States.
Problem is, Wakanda doesn’t exist.
For those who aren’t well-versed in Disney’s DIS, -1.00% Marvel movies or the comic books that inspired them, Wakanda is the secretive, high-tech African nation that the superhero Black Panther calls home.
But a research fellow using the Agricultural Tariff Tracker operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday noticed that Wakanda was listed as a free-trade partner with the United States, along with Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.
Francis Tseng, a fellow at the Jain Family Institute who was conducting research with the tariff tool, told NBC News that, “I definitely did a double take. I Googled Wakanda to make sure it was actually fiction, and I wasn’t misremembering. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.”
Tseng also shared his surprising find on Twitter TWTR, +3.19% with a screenshot of Wakanda listed as a free-trade partner, right below Peru.
What’s more, there were hundreds of data inputs for Wakanda, including goods such as unroasted coffee beans, livestock and fresh vegetables. (But no Vibranium? That’s one of Wakanda’s most valuable resources.)
Wakanda appeared to have been listed as a free-trade country on the USDA tariff tracker sometime after June 10, NBC reported. But Wakanda was removed from the tracker by 2 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
So what happened? A USDA spokesperson told MarketWatch by email that the “Wakanda” entries were supposed to be test files to ensure the tracker was working. “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,” he said. “The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down.”
Reps for Disney and Marvel Studios did not immediately respond to a MarketWatch request for comment.
Believe it or not, this sort of thing has happened before. In fact, earlier this year, a lobbying registration form in the House of Representatives database featured four supervillains as lobbyists supposedly working on renewable energy issues. They included Jack Napier, Edward Nigma, Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn, aka Batman foes the Joker and the Riddler, as well as Spider-Man enemies Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin.
Turned out, that was an internal test run by the Clerk of the House’s staff that accidentally appeared in a public listing.
Read more: These villains really did register as Washington lobbyists
“Black Panther” was one of Disney and Marvel’s biggest blockbusters last year, earning $1.3 billion worldwide and breaking box-office records as the biggest February movie of all time, as well as the highest-grossing film by a black director in history.
The first mainstream superhero movie fronted by an almost entirely black cast also became a cultural phenomenon, with moviegoers wearing “Black Panther” costumes and traditional African dress to go see the movie, and many sharing pictures of themselves on social media crossing their arms in the Wakanda warrior stance with hashtags like #WakandaForever.
Read more: Diversity sells! ‘Black Panther’ just clawed past two more box office milestones
