Never one to mince words, the normally outspoken U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Kyle McCarter, got into a squabble over the weekend with a pair of Kenyans who were enquiring about the status of student visas to the United States that are now in question following President Trump’s decision to withhold visas to any international students whose school will not hold in-person classes this fall.

When it was suggested that any delay in resolving this issue would only increase China’s soft power in Africa, the ambassador responded in his characteristically animated way, calling the assertion “total rubbish.”