US Says South Africa’s Ambassador “No Longer Welcome”
Washington (Quds News Network)- Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the US “is no longer welcome” in the country, marking the latest Trump administration move targeting the African nation.
Rubio, in a post on X, accused Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump. Rubio declared the South African diplomat “persona non grata.”
Neither Rubio, who posted as he was reportedly flying back to Washington from a Group of 7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada, nor the State Department gave any immediate explanation for the decision.
South Africa's Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country.
Emrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS.
We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.https://t.co/mnUnwGOQdx
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) March 14, 2025
Rubio linked his remarks to an article by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart, wherein Rasool is quoted as saying Trump mobilised a “supremacist instinct” and “white victimhood” as a “dog whistle” during the 2024 elections.
Rasool’s expulsion is the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration targeting South Africa, a country that has supported Palestinian rights and helped spearhead a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel, a US ally, of committing genocide in Gaza.
In response, a statement from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said it had “noted the regrettable expulsion” of Rasool and called on its diplomatic officials “to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.”
“South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America,” the statement said.
Rasool previously served as his country’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2010 to 2015 before returning to the post in January.
Earlier this week, the news outlet Semafor reported that Rasool has been denied what are typically routine opportunities to speak with officials at the US State Department, as well as with high-level Republicans, since Trump’s inauguration.
South Africa is governed by the African National Congress (ANC), a party that emerged out of the anti-apartheid struggle that ended white minority rule in that country.
But its government has been a target of particular ire for the Trump administration and allies like right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, who is of South African origin.
Trump’s government has accused the ANC government of discriminating against its white population.
Trump has nixed aid to South Africa and, in February – at a time when the White House had almost entirely shuttered refugee admissions for people fleeing violence and repression around the world – Trump offered expedited citizenship for white Afrikaners “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.
The announcement was a response to a land distribution law meant to address inequalities that have continued since the apartheid era. The South African government says that Trump is misinformed about the law, which has not been used to confiscate any land.
Despite Trump’s portrayal of Afrikaners as a besieged minority, South African authorities say that the economic legacy of apartheid, during which white South Africans exercised near-total control over the economy, persists in continued levels of economic inequality between Black and white residents.
A 2017 government audit found that while Black people make up 80 percent of the population of South Africa, they own just 4 percent of privately held farmland.
The white Afrikaners who own the vast majority of South Africa’s farmland comprise a mere 8 percent of the population.
Rasool and his family were themselves expelled from their home in Cape Town during the apartheid period, when Black people were forcibly relocated to designated non-white areas with almost no resources or economic opportunities.
