Rubio Declares South African Ambassador ‘Persona Non Grata,’ Ratcheting Up Tensions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that South Africa’s ambassador to the US “is no longer welcome” after the diplomat made remarks about President Donald Trump, escalating an ongoing dispute between Washington and Pretoria.

Rubio announced this in a post on X, referencing a Breitbart News article regarding a detailed discussion that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool had with a think tank in Johannesburg.

Read: The significant South African connections within the Trump administration

Rasool characterized Trump and his Make America Great Again supporters as essentially a “supremacist” group that projects “white victimhood.”

“Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who despises America and hates @POTUS,” Rubio wrote, tagging Trump’s official X account. “We have no interest in engaging with him, thus he is regarded as PERSONA NON GRATA.”

The South African embassy in Washington has not yet responded to inquiries via phone and email for comments as of Friday.

Designating the diplomat persona non grata implies that the Trump administration will abstain from engaging with him, which could compel him to leave the country or motivate his government to recall him.

This diplomatic incident adds to a contentious, racially tense conflict between the two nations, partly incited by Trump’s South African-born billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who has promoted the conspiracy theory of a “genocide” against South Africa’s White farmers.

This situation led to a White House executive order that halted US foreign aid to South Africa and stated that the US refugee system would prioritize Afrikaner “victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

Listen/read:
‘South Africa should heed Trump’
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Kuseni Dlamini’s aspirations for US-SA relations
Trump 2.0: What’s at stake for South Africa?
Business community praises Rasool’s selection as SA’s US ambassador

Relations between Washington and one of Africa’s largest economies had already been strained following South Africa’s case filed in the International Court of Justice against Israel, a key American ally, for allegedly committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, alongside the African nation’s connections with Russia, Iran, and China.

During his comments, which were delivered in a detailed discussion with the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection published on Friday, Rasool referenced Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with a far-right German politician and Musk’s involvement in UK politics, asserting that Trump was “mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency” both domestically and internationally.

The US has previously expelled diplomats; in 1999, it accused a Russian diplomat of espionage, declared him ‘persona non grata,’ and gave him 10 days to exit the country.

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Listen to Rasool speaking to Moneyweb editor Ryk van Niekerk following his appointment as SA’s US ambassador in this Special Report from January (or read the transcript here):

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You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.

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