South Africa has reacted to an announcement by United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio declaring its Ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, persona non grata.
Rubio made the declaration on Friday, March 15, following Rasool’s remarks about US President Donald Trump. In a statement on X, the Secretary of State accused Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” and stated that the US had no further diplomatic engagements with him.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country. Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates POTUS,” Rubio wrote.
“We have nothing to discuss with him, and so he is considered persona non grata.”
The US official also shared a link to a Breitbart article, which quoted Rasool as saying at a foreign policy seminar that Trump was “mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency” at home and abroad.
Following the announcement, the South African Presidency described the expulsion as “regrettable” and called for diplomatic engagement to be handled with decorum.
“The Presidency has noted the regrettable expulsion of South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool. The Presidency urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders 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,” read a statement issued on Saturday.
The declaration against Rasool marks the latest sign of deteriorating relations between Washington and Pretoria.
Since Trump’s second term began, the US has taken a series of punitive measures against South Africa, including financial aid cuts and diplomatic sanctions.
Back in February, Trump signed an executive order halting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to South Africa. The order, released by the White House on February 7, cited concerns over South Africa’s land expropriation law, which allows the government to seize land without compensation.
The US government claimed the policy unfairly targeted minority white farmers, particularly Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French settlers. The executive order also referenced South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its renewed diplomatic ties with Iran.
Additionally, the order directed all US government agencies, including USAID, to halt foreign assistance to South Africa. However, it left room for agency heads to authorize aid in specific cases.
According to the most recent US government data, South Africa received nearly four hundred and forty million dollars in American assistance in 2023.
The order also pledged to support the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees, citing “government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”
The escalating tensions come amid growing diplomatic strains between South Africa and the US, with Pretoria maintaining that its policies are aimed at addressing historical inequalities.
