South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool speaks at the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 6, 2013.
Cliff Owen/FR170079 AP
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Cliff Owen/FR170079 AP
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he’s kicking out the new Ambassador from South Africa — accusing him of hating America and hating Donald Trump.
It’s the latest salvo against South Africa, which has been in the administration’s crosshairs since Trump took office in January.
In a fiery post on X on Friday, Secretary Rubio called Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool a “race baiting politician” and said he was considered “a persona non grata.”
Rubio’s ire came after Rasool said in an online seminar hosted by a South African think tank that the MAGA movement was partially in response to worries about demographic change and a future when white Americans would no longer be the majority.
“So in terms of that — the supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement — the Make America Great Again movement — as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white, and that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon,” said Rasool.
The South African government on Saturday scrambled to contain the fallout, issuing a short, terse statement. Vincent Magwenya, spokesman for the South African president, called the ambassador’s expulsion “regrettable.”
“We urge all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter,” he said. “South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America.”
Things have been tense between the two allies, after Trump falsely accused the South African government of confiscating land from white farmers and invited white Afrikaners to resettle in the US as refugees.
Thirty years since the end of apartheid most commercial farmland in South Africa is still owned by the country’s white minority. The government recently passed a bill aimed at addressing that, but contrary to Trump’s claim, no land has been seized.
South Africa’s government said it was, quote, “ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged.”
Trump also cut all financial aid to South Africa, citing the alleged persecution of the Afrikaners as well as South Africa’s genocide case against US ally Israel at the Hague.
Rubio snubbed South Africa last month too, by failing to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting. South Africa is the current G20 president but Rubio said he was skipping the event because the summit had DEI and climate change on the agenda.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also opted out of the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Cape Town after the US objected to the themes of “solidarity, equality and sustainability.”
South African-born Trump adviser Elon Musk has also attacked South Africa for what he says are its “racist ownership” laws, that prevent him from taking his Starlink satellite service to the country unless he meets affirmative action requirements.
Ambassador Rasool was South Africa’s envoy to the US once before, from 2010 to 2015.
When he was a child, Rasool’s family was forcibly removed from their home during apartheid when the government declared their suburb a “whites only area.” He went on to become active in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement.
In his speech on the webinar that caused Rubio’s outrage on Friday, the ambassador said South Africa needed to be cautious and diplomatic in dealing with Trump’s administration.
