WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday declared Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, persona non grata, calling the envoy a “race-baiting politician” who hates America and President Donald Trump.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Rubio said in a post on social media platform X. “We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” Rubio said.
Rasool had presented his credentials to former President Joe Biden on January 13, marking the start of the envoy’s tenure, according to the South African embassy’s website, which said this was Rasool’s second stint in Washington.
The US State Department and South Africa’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ties between the United States and South Africa have deteriorated since Trump cut US financial aid to the country, citing disapproval of its land policy and of its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Washington’s ally Israel over the war with Hamas in Gaza, a probe that Rasool has voiced support for.
In a Semafor report earlier this week, a South African cited Rasool’s strident criticism of Israel — with the news site describing him as one of the South African government’s “most ardent pro-Palestine voices” — as the reason for his struggle to secure meetings with US officials.
He has also appeared to express support for Hamas, posting a photo to Facebook in September 2023 of a scarf that he said was signed by the terror group’s then leader Ismail Haniyeh and which he received during an “ITI programme with Hamas to share strategic wisdom in the face of Arab ‘normalisation,’ further Israeli occupation , & US approval.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, listens as US President Donald Trump, left, meets with France’s President Emmanuel Macron (not in picture) at the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, February 24, 2025. (Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP)
Trump has said, without citing evidence, that “South Africa is confiscating land” and that “certain classes of people” are being treated “very badly.”
South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who is close to Trump, has said white South Africans have been the victims of “racist ownership laws.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law a bill in January aimed at making it easier for the state to expropriate land in the public interest, in some cases without compensating the owner. He has defended the policy and said the government had not confiscated any land. The policy was aimed at evening out racial disparities in land ownership in the Black-majority nation, he said.
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