According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Africa’s ambassador to the US “is no longer welcome in our great country” as of Friday.
In an X post, Rubio accused lawmaker “Ebrahim Rasool” of “hating America and hates” Trump.
“He is considered PERSONA NON GRATA” because “we have nothing to discuss with him,” as Rubio put it in his letter. The diplomatically harsh sanction of “persona non grata” (PNG) typically results in the deportation of the designated individual from the host nation.
Someone from the State Department notified HEADLINESFOREVER on Saturday that Rasool had until March 21 to depart the United States.
President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa stated his “regrettable” choice and vowed to work toward a “mutually beneficial relationship.”
In a statement, Ramaphosa’s office urged all relevant and affected parties to engage with the subject with the established diplomatic etiquette.
Rasool spoke Friday at a think tank regarding Trump’s victory and presidency; Rubio’s post linked to a Breitbart story about his remarks.
A new chapter in the US-South African relationship’s precipitous decline has begun with PNG’s proclamation against Rasool. During Biden’s presidency, ties between the two nations were tense. But ever since Trump started his second term in office, the US has imposed a number of punitive measures against South Africa. The president and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who was born and brought up in the country, have both expressed their disapproval of the regime.
South Africa’s government claims land reform programs are essential to address apartheid’s legacy, but Trump and Musk have claimed that White farmers in the nation are being discriminated against as a result.
Rasool was addressing both the “continuities” and the “discontinuities” from the Biden administration in his remarks that appear to have prompted Rubio’s PNG announcement.
“What Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency at home and… abroad as well,” Rasool said, speaking on his second visit as ambassador to the US. In mid-January, he presented his credentials to then-President Joe Biden. He had before worked in the Obama administration in Washington, DC.
He stated that the forthcoming shift in US demographics—”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”—was the driving force behind the Make America Great Again campaign, rather than a “supracracist instinct.”
“In my opinion, there is data that would support the construction of this wall, the deportation movement, etc., etc., so that we can understand some of the things that we perceive as instinctive, nativist, racist, etc.,” he said during his nearly 20-minute remarks to the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA).
To paraphrase Rasool, “it’s no accident” that Musk is associated with far-right British politics and that JD Vance, the vice president, met with the head of a far-right German party before the elections in Germany.
“So, it starts to get into the question of how the Afrikaners fit into that overall scheme,” he ran on. “White victimhood is being used as a dog whistle, and that much is obvious.”
To address the land ownership gap that apartheid left behind, South Africa passed the Expropriation Act in January. The country’s Black and White populations are disproportionately affected by this policy.
As a result of apartheid, White South Africans were able to acquire more land at the expense of non-White South Africans. Over 80% of South Africa’s 63 million Black people do not own any private land, even though racial segregation was formally abolished in the country roughly 30 years ago.
If the government of South Africa determines that the seizure of land is “just and equitable and in the public interest,” it can use the expropriation statute to transfer the land without having to pay compensation in certain cases.
“Public access to land in an equitable and just manner” will be guaranteed under the law, according to Ramaphosa. However, Trump and Musk in the White House hold the belief that the land reform scheme unfairly targets White South Africans.
The move has caused the Trump administration to respond strongly.
“South Africa is doing very bad things,” Rubio said when he announced in early February that he would not be attending the G20 foreign ministers conference in Johannesburg.
“Snatching someone else’s property. In order to promote “solidarity, equality & sustainability,” the G20 is being used. So, DEI and global warming, according to the senior US diplomat. I am not here to fritter away public funds or appease anti-American sentiment; rather, I am here to promote American national interests.
Following his accusation of White farmer prejudice, Trump only days later cut off South African funding. “Promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.” The president made this same promise in the same executive order. On social media earlier this month, Trump made the following statement: “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.”
The State Department has started implementing refugee resettlement for Afrikaners, according to a spokeswoman who informed HEADLINESFOREVER on Saturday. The official also said that “initial interviews are underway.”