Rubio declares South African ambassador to US ‘persona non grata’ over Trump comments

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared South African ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool “persona non grata” and accused the diplomat of being a “race-baiting politician” over his recent comments about President Trump.

“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Rubio said in a Friday post on the social platform X. “Emrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”

In the same post, Rubio shared a link to an article by right-wing news outlet Breitbart detailing Rasool’s comments to the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) think-tank in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

Rasool, in his video address to the think-tank, accused Trump of leading a “white supremacist movement” at home and abroad. 

“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 percent white,” Rasool said. 

“And so that needs to be factored in, so that we understand some of the things that we think are instinctive, nativist, racist things, I think that there’s data that, for example, would support that, that would go to this wall being built, the deportation movement,” the South Africa diplomat said.

The Hill has reached out to the South African embassy in Washington for comment. 

The State Department confirmed to The Hill on Saturday that Rasool is considered “persona non grata” and has to depart the U.S. by Friday, March 21. 

Rasool was South Africa’s ambassador in Washington from 2010 to 2015. He returned to serve again earlier this year. 

The rebuke from Rubio comes as the relationship between South Africa and the U.S. has worsened. 

Trump signed an executive order in early February to pause aid to South Africa. He hammered the country for seizing “ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”

Trump’s dissatisfaction with South Africa bubbled up as the African nation signed legislation in January, dubbed the Expropriation Act, allowing the government to take land without payback when it deems it “just and equitable and in the public interest.” 

At the time of signing the order, Trump accused the South African government of confiscating “land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and other nation’s officials push back on Trump claims. Ramaphosa said the law is “not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution.”

“South Africa’s unjust land expropriation law, as well as its growing relationship with countries like Russia and Iran, has prompted a serious review of our South Africa policy, which is currently underway,” the State Department spokesperson told The Hill in an emailed statement. 

Days prior to Trump penning the order to suspend aid to South Africa, Rubio said he would skip the G20 summit in Johannesburg, alleging that South Africa was “doing very bad things.” 

“Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change,” Rubio said at the time. 

Trump said earlier this month that he is offering an expedited pathway to U.S. citizenship to South African farmers. The president said some of them are being treated terribly and, again, accused the government of “confiscating their LAND and FARMS, and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT.”

The State Department is “coordinating” with the Department of Homeland Security and “has begun implementing refugee resettlement for disfavored ethnic minority Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination,” according to the spokesperson, adding that “initial interviews are underway.” 

The relationship between South Africa and the U.S. has “reached its lowest point,” according to Patrick Gaspard, the ex-U.S. ambassador to South Africa. He is now the president of the liberal Center for American Progress think-tank. 

“There’s too much at stake to not work towards the repair of this partnership,” he wrote Friday on X.

Rubio’s pushback on Rasool’s speech has received praise from some in Congress, with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) applauding the former Florida senator for “calling out the South African ambassador’s disgraceful, anti-American hate speech.” 

“Suffice it to say that he is not cut out for diplomacy,” Risch said Friday on X. 

Updated at 9:12 a.m. EST