[Image: FMT]
South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was told he was no longer welcome in America after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused him of being a “race-bating politician who hates America”.
Rasool was expelled on Friday, 14 March, mere days after President Cyril Ramaphosa said Rasool was “on the ground” in Washington, engaging with stakeholders to “underscore the importance” of deepening economic, cultural and political relations between the US and SA.
Yet only two months after Rasool arrived in Washington, Rubio declared Rasool “not welcome”, posting a scathing message on X calling him PERSONA NON GRATA.”
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.
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
Robio cited a Breitbart News post that linked Rasool to an online lecture offered by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) on the Trump administration’s foreign policy and the ramifications of its changes for South Africa and Africa.
Daily Maverick reported this weekend that the Breitbart Report was penned by South African-born Joel Pollack who is a strong Trump supporter and rumoured to be the president’s top choice for the US Ambassador post to SA.
According to Pollack, Rasool told delegates to the seminar that Trump “is leading a white supremacist movement in America and around the world”. Pollak went further, claiming that Rasool said that “white supremacism” was motivating Trump’s “disrespect” for the “current hegemonic order” of the world, including institutions like the United Nations and the G20.
Pollack also claimed that Rasool said “the Make America Great Again movement was a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States, and suggested that South African farmers who had presented Afrikaner grievances within the US were part of that global effort.”
The claims are somewhat misleading as transcripts of the Mistra webinar revealed no references to “white supremacist”, although the implication was clear as Rasool is reported to have said:
“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.”
Rasool also waded into the Afriforum and Solidarity trip to the US to complain about the Expropriation Act.
He told online delegates that the trip was “very clearly… to project white victimhood as a dog whistle that there is a global protective movement that is beginning to envelop embattled white communities or, apparently, embattled white communities. It may not be true, it may not make sense, but that is not the dog whistle that is being heard in a global white base…. they are pitting a supremacist insurgency against the incumbency.”
Also referenced was Trump’s alleged “disrespect for the institutional base of the current hegemonic order”.
He suggested that SA was under attack because “we are the historical antidote to supremacism”, citing SA’s transition to democracy and “the success story” of the Government of National Unity.
All of this obviously didn’t endear Rubio to Rasool and comes after the US Secretary accused South Africa last month of “doing very bad things” and leading to him skipping the G20 meeting held in Johannesburg.
Rasool also refuted claims during the Minister’s webinar that he was not doing enough for ‘South Africa’s cause’ while in Washington, with some saying he failed to work with so-called power brokers in the US capitol.
“When you get access, you shut up because … you don’t conduct the kind of faith of 60 million people on television, on video, on social media. That would be absolutely irresponsible and then you have a reason to recall me because I’m playing silly buggers with the fortunes of our nation.”
The South African presidency acknowledged Rasool’s new persona non grata status, saying, “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 of America.”
One should wonder if Rasool received the memo about “building a mutually beneficial relationship”. It remains to be seen what political and economic fallout follows the expulsion of South Africa’s ambassador to the US.
Rasool, who had served as US ambassador from 2010 to 2015, has now been given 72 hours to leave the US, as well as being notified that his privileges and immunities would cease on Monday, 17 March, and that he and his dependents would be required to leave the country by no later than 21 March.
He would likely not be in a hurry to face the music here in South Africa, but with ICE seemingly operating without any legal restrictions, he’d be well advised to GTFO as soon as possible.
[Source: Daily Maverick]
