Pretoria – In a dramatic escalation of tensions between South Africa and the United States, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared South Africa's ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, "no longer welcome" in the country. The explosive move, announced on Friday, 14 March, comes barely two months after Rasool's arrival in Washington and marks a significant deterioration in diplomatic relations between Pretoria and Washington.
Rubio's scathing pronouncement accuses Rasool of being a "race-baiting politician who hates America and hates [the President of the United States]." He further declared Rasool "PERSONA NON GRATA," indicating that the US government refuses to engage with him.
The controversy stems from a lecture Rasool gave in an online webinar hosted by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra), where he discussed the Trump administration's foreign policy and its implications for South Africa and Africa.
In his X post, Rubio linked to a report from the right-wing news site Breitbart News, authored by Joel Pollak, a South African-born "senior editor at large" and staunch Trump supporter. Pollak's article claimed that Rasool told the webinar that Trump "is leading a white supremacist movement in America and around the world." Pollak further alleged that Rasool stated 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.
According to Pollak, Rasool also suggested that the Make America Great Again movement was a "white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States" and that South African farmers who had presented Afrikaner grievances within the US were part of that global effort.
While Rasool did not explicitly use the phrase "white supremacist" during the Mistra webinar, he did use the word "supremacist" several times and arguably implied that he meant white supremacist.
"I think what Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency – those who are in power – by mobilising a supremacism against the incumbency, at home, and, I think I’ve illustrated, abroad as well," Rasool said.
He added, "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 cited the missions to the Trump administration by Afriforum and Solidarity to complain that the passing of the Expropriation Act was intended to seize the land of Afrikaners. He argued that the aim of these organisations 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."
The expulsion of Rasool is the latest in a series of incidents that have strained relations between Washington and Pretoria.
In February, Trump froze US aid to South Africa, citing a law in the country that he alleges allows land to be seized from white farmers. Last week, Trump further fueled tensions, saying South Africa's farmers were welcome to settle in the United States after repeating his accusations that the government was "confiscating" land from white people.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that "any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship."
Adding fuel to the fire, Elon Musk, one of Trump's closest allies, has accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's government of having "openly racist ownership laws."
Land ownership remains a contentious issue in South Africa, with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid. The government is under pressure to implement reforms to address this historical imbalance.
Despite the rising tensions, President Cyril Ramaphosa recently stated that 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.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has acknowledged Rubio's post, stating that it will "engage through the diplomatic channel."
In a statement from the South African presidency, spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the presidency had "noted the regrettable expulsion" of SA's ambassador to the US. "The presidency urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter," Magwenya said, adding that "South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America."
Meanwhile, in the US, Republican Senator Jim Risch, the powerful chair of the Senate foreign relations committee and a frequent critic of SA, applauded Rubio for calling out the South African ambassador’s disgraceful, anti-American hate speech. "Suffice it to say he is not cut out for diplomacy," Risch posted on X.
Rasool, an anti-apartheid campaigner in his youth, has also expressed anger toward the Israeli government for its war in Gaza. In February, he stated that what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule "is on steroids in Palestine."
The expulsion of Ambassador Rasool marks a low point in US-South Africa relations and raises serious questions about the future of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
