The United States has expelled South Africa’s ambassador following remarks made about former President Donald Trump, escalating diplomatic tensions between the two nations.
While Washington has not disclosed the exact comments that led to the expulsion, officials cited violations of diplomatic protocols.
The move has sparked debate in South Africa, with some accusing the US of overreach while others call for diplomatic restraint.
The administration of President Donald Trump has declared South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool a persona non grata in the United States.
In a social media post on Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country”.
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“Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates POTUS,” Rubio wrote, using the acronym for President of the United States. “We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”
Rubio linked his remarks to an article by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart, wherein Rasool is quoted as saying Trump mobilised a “supremacist instinct” and “white victimhood” as a “dog whistle” during the 2024 elections.
On Saturday morning, South Africa’s presidency issued a statement stating that the decision was “regrettable”.
“The Presidency urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter,” the presidency said, adding that it “remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America”.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, posted on X that the government “will engage through the diplomatic channel”.
Rasool’s expulsion is the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration castigating South Africa, a country that has supported Palestinian rights and helped spearhead a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel, a US ally, of genocidal acts in Gaza.
Earlier this week, the news outlet Semafor reported that Rasool, a veteran diplomat, has been denied what are typically routine opportunities to speak with officials at the US State Department, as well as with high-level Republicans, since Trump’s inauguration.
Rasool returned to his post as South Africa’s ambassador to the US in January. He previously served in the role from 2010 to 2015, during the presidency of Barack Obama.
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South Africa is governed by the African National Congress (ANC), a party that emerged out of the anti-apartheid struggle that ended white minority rule in that country.
But its government has been a target of particular ire for the Trump administration and allies like right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, who is of South African origin.
Trump’s government has accused the ANC government of discriminating against its white population.
Trump has nixed aid to South Africa and, in February – at a time when the White House had almost entirely shuttered refugee admissions for people fleeing violence and repression around the world – Trump offered expedited citizenship for white Afrikaners “escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.
The announcement was a response to a land distribution law meant to address inequalities that have continued since the apartheid era.
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The South African government says that Trump is misinformed about the law, which has not been used to confiscate any land.
Vincent Magwenya, a spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said that his country was “not going to partake in a counterproductive megaphone diplomacy” – referring to Trump’s propensity for issuing missives about South Africa on social media.
Despite Trump’s portrayal of Afrikaners as a besieged minority, South African authorities say that the economic legacy of apartheid, during which white South Africans exercised near-total control over the economy, persists in continued levels of economic inequality between Black and white residents.
A 2017 government audit found that while Black people make up 80 percent of the population of South Africa, they own just 4 percent of privately held farmland.
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The white Afrikaners who own the vast majority of South Africa’s farmland comprise a mere 8 percent of the population.
Rasool and his family were themselves expelled from their home in Cape Town during the apartheid period, when Black people were forcibly relocated to designated non-white areas with almost no resources or economic opportunities
