US kicks out South African ambassador who ‘hates America’

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Embrahim Rasool, as a “persona non grata” who was no longer welcome in the US after he publicly accused President Donald Trump of white supremacy.

Rubio wrote on X, “South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country. Embrahim 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.”

On Thursday, Rasool addressed the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) in Johannesburg, where he criticized Trump’s pro-Israel policies and called him a white supremacist.

Rasool said, “What Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the 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% white.”

Trump has cut aid to South Africa, citing its discriminatory land appropriation policies and its accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.

In an executive order issued in February, Trump stated, “In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”

“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” the order said.