US expels SA ambassador Ebrahim Rasool over anti-Trump remarks, accuses him of race-baiting

The United States is expelling South Africa's ambassador to Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday, accusing the envoy of hating the country and President Donald Trump.

"South Africa's Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country," Rubio posted on X.

Ebrahim Rasool is "a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS," he said, referring to Trump by his White House X account handle.

"We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA."

The expulsion of the ambassador - a very rare move by the United States - is the latest development in rising tensions between Washington and Pretoria.

Trump, in February, 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."

One of Trump's closest allies is South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who has accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's government of having "openly racist ownership laws."

Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa, with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid and the government under pressure to implement reforms.

During a G20 event in South Africa last month, Ramaphosa said he had a "wonderful" call with Trump soon after the US leader took office in January.

But relations later "seemed to go a little bit off the rails," he said.

In his X post, Rubio linked to an article from the conservative news outlet Breitbart, which addressed Rasool's remarks via livestream to a foreign policy seminar on Friday.

"He said that white supremacism was motivating Trump's 'disrespect' for the 'current hegemonic order' of the world," Breitbart reported, adding that Rasool noted that Trump's Make America Great Again movement "was a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States."

Rasool, an anti-apartheid campaigner in his youth, has expressed anger toward the Israeli government for its war in Gaza.

In February in an interview with news site Zeteo, he said what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule "is on steroids in Palestine."

AFP