Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s Ambassador, has been barred from entering the Unites States by the Trump administration.
In a social media post on Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country”.
“Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates POTUS,” Rubio wrote, using the acronym for President of the United States. “We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”
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Rubio linked his remarks to an article by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart, wherein Rasool is quoted as saying Trump mobilised a “supremacist instinct” and “white victimhood” as a “dog whistle” during the 2024 elections.
On Saturday morning, South Africa’s presidency issued a statement stating that the decision was “regrettable”.
“The Presidency urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter,” the presidency said, adding that it “remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America”.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, posted on X that the government “will engage through the diplomatic channel”.
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Rasool’s expulsion is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration targeting South Africa, a nation that has advocated for Palestinian rights and played a key role in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel, a U.S. ally, of committing genocidal acts in Gaza.
Vincent Magwenya, a spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, told the Reuters news agency that his country was “not going to partake in a counterproductive megaphone diplomacy” – referring to Trump’s propensity for issuing missives about South Africa on social media.
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