New episode in growing tensions between Washington and Pretoria. The South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasol, has just been declared “persona non grata” in the country. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made this announcement on his X account this Saturday, March 15. He accuses the diplomat of “feeding racial tensions” and “hate the United States and the president” Donald Trump. “We have nothing to discuss with him. He is no longer welcome in our big country,” wrote the head of American diplomacy.
This decision is part of a context of hardening of relations between the United States and South Africa. Since his return to the White House in January, Donald Trump has accused Pretoria of “unjust” the descendants of European settlers, even creating an asylum procedure in the United States for “Afrikaners refugees”.
In addition to cutting all help to South Africa, he had decided that the United States would encourage “resettlement” of these, “fleeing racial discrimination encouraged by the government”, according to him. Elon Musk, a native of South Africa and powerful ally of Donald Trump, also accused the South African government of discrimination against white populations.
A “supremacist assault”
In his message published on X, Marco Rubio cited an article in the media Breitbartclose to far-right circles and American white supremacists, who denounced a speech by the South African ambassador to the United States at a conference in Johannesburg on Friday. “The supremacist assault against the power in place, we see it in the domestic policy of the United States and the Maga movement (” Make America Great Again “) not only as a response to a supremacist instinct, but also to very clear data which show major demographic changes in the United States in which the electorate can vote in the United States should become white at 48 %”, said Ebrahim Rasool.
The South African ambassador had also mentioned the ever-stronger relations between Elon Musk and the far-right movements in Europe, seeing a desire to rally around the world people considering themselves part of a “white community in danger”.
A “regrettable expulsion”
Ebrahim Rasool is a former activist against apartheid, who had served a prison sentence for his activism, before engaging in the African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela. The South African presidency “took note of his regrettable expulsion” his ambassador to the United States, she reacted in a statement. However, she said she was “determined to build a mutually beneficial relationship” with Washington.
In February, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he wanted to go to the United States, recognizing that “everything seemed to derail” him and Donald Trump since a first call between the two men on the return of the President in power. Marco Rubio had also refused last month to go to a g20 meeting in South Africa, denouncing the focus on “solidarity, equality and sustainable development” chosen by Pretoria, which took the rotating presidency of the forum for a year last December.
Another big point of friction between Pretoria and Washington is the complaint for “genocide” in Gaza filed in 2023 by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice (CIJ) of The Hague, while Washington has closer to the Hebrew State since Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office.