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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the South African ambassador to the United States “Persona Non Grata” on Friday, describing him as a “bait politician who hates America”.
In a post on x Rubio wrote that Ebrahim Rasool was “no longer welcome in our big country” and linked to a report from the Conservative site of Breitbart News on an online conference that the ambassador has given to the Trump administration’s foreign policy and its implications for South Africa.
“What Donald Trump is launching is an assault against the holder, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the holder, at home. . . And abroad ”, Rasool said In the online event organized by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection of South Africa.
Rasool’s expulsion is the last episode of the rapid deterioration of relations between Washington and Pretoria since Trump took up his duties.
South Africa brought a procedure against Israel at the International Court of Justice at the end of 2023, accusing Israel of having violated international laws on genocide during his war against Hamas in Gaza, which Israel denies vigorously.
Last month, Trump froze foreign aid to South Africa, partly in retaliation for the CIJ case as well as its complaints on the policies of expropriation of the land of Pretoria, which made angry the president and its billionaire of South African origin Elon Musk.
In his conference, Rasool added that “Trump’s supremacist assault” is visible “in the domestic policy of the United States, the Maga movement. . . In response not only to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data which show major demographic changes in the United States in which the voting electorate in the United States should become 48% white, “according to the video of the event published on YouTube.
The labeling of an ambassador like Persona Non Grata is a rare and serious diplomatic decision.
Last month, Rubio jumped a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in South Africa after accusing Pretoria of “anti-Americanism” and doing “very bad things”, such as expropriation of private property and the use of the summit to promote equity and inclusion and climate change.
Rasool, a veteran diplomat who has been expressed in his criticism of Israel in the past, said before taking his post in December that he would put South Africa’s “megaphone” in Gaza when he sought to repair difficult relations with Washington.
