Foreign Minister Marco Rubio is trying to expel the Ambassador of South Africa in the US, Ebrahim Rasool, after official Donald Trump criticized during a forum early Friday.
“South Africa’s ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our big country,” Rubio wrote on X later that day.
He accused Rasool of being a race bait politician who hates and hates America [the president of the United States] @Potus. “
“We have nothing to discuss with him, which is why he is considered persona non grata,” Rubio added.
The independent contacted the South African Embassy in Washington for comment.
In his announcement, Rubio pointed to Rasool remarks on a recent panel offered by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, a South African thinking tank.
During his remarks, Rasool argued that Trump was making the Americans a movement again, as well as Elon Musk and JD Vvce’s efforts this year, which boosted the right -wing parties in the United Kingdom and Germany, was part of a global movement that catered for the anxiety of white communities.
“It may not be true, it may not make sense, but it is not the dog whistle heard in a global, white base,” the ambassador said.
The ambassador, who served the same post in the Obama administration, has reportedly already struggled to get meetings with Trump administration figures and top republicans in Washington.
“A man named Ebrahim, who is Muslim, with a history of pro-Palestinian politics, is unlikely to do well in that work now,” a South African diplomat told Semaphor.
The eviction attempt is the latest a quick decline that took place during the opening months of the Trump administration in the US South African relationship.
Last month, the White House said it would cut off US aid to South Africa in protest marches of the country that Israel accused of genocide in the international court of law.
The Trump administration also mentions opposition to an expropriation law on land intended to correct the country’s history of racial inequality and the forced displacement of black families.
The White House has accused the law, which in some cases allow expropriation without compensation, of being racist against white Africans in South Africa.
South Africa has also announced plans to spend more on health, with cuts to the US Agency for International Development. The country is taking care of the world’s largest HIV population and has more than 5 million people on antiretroviral medicines supported by the US in the past.
