The United States has expelled South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool for criticizing the Trump administration, further heightening tensions between the two countries.
In a post on X Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country,” calling him a “race-baiting politician who hates America” and President Donald Trump.
“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” Rubio wrote.
The New York Times reported that the expulsion was official, citing a spokesperson for the South African president.
In his social media post, Rubio included a link to an article from the far-right website Breitbart on recent remarks Rasool gave to a research institute in Johannesburg about U.S. demographics moving away from a white majority (Rasool’s commentary begins at the 1:23 mark in the linked video). The article characterized Rasool’s comments as a claim that Trump is leading a “global white supremacist movement.”
Rasool spoke about a “supremacist assault on incumbency in U.S. politics,” pointing to the MAGA 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 pointed to billionaire Elon Musk’s and Vice President JD Vance’s recent overtures to far-right political movements in Europe. Relations between the U.S. and South Africa have been strained in Trump’s new administration. Last month, the president signed an executive order halting aid to South Africa over a new law there intended to help address post-apartheid inequality in Black land ownership. The executive order suggested the legislation discriminates against white landowners. Trump also directed his administration to prioritize white South Africans’ resettlement in the U.S. Trump has also echoed South African-born Musk’s false claims that the South African government is targeting its white citizens — a claim that, like his own administration’s attacks on diversity initiatives in the U.S., is rooted in the presumption that any policy meant to create a more equitable playing field for nonwhite communities is by default an attack on white cultural and political power. Rubio also skipped out on a G20 meeting in South Africa in February, saying the host country was using the summit to promote “DEI and climate change.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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