Marco Rubio says South African ambassador 'no longer welcome' in US

Secretary of State declared Ebrahim Rasool ‘persona non grata’ as ties between Washington and Pretoria are strained

Ebrahim Rasool was appointed South Africa's ambassador to the US in January. He had held the post between 2010 and 2015. AP

South Africa's ambassador to Washington Ebrahim Rasool is no longer welcome in the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Friday, taking ties between the two countries to a new low since US President Donald Trump assumed office in January.

Mr Rubio accused Mr Rasool of being “a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS”, referring to Mr Trump by his White House X account handle.

“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered persona non grata,” he said in a post on X.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the US decision was “regrettable” and called for “diplomatic decorum” between the two states.

Mr Rubio, in his post on X, linked to an article from the conservative news outlet Breitbart, which addressed Mr Rasool's remarks by livestream to a foreign policy seminar on Friday.

“He said that white supremacism was motivating Trump's 'disrespect' for the 'current hegemonic order' of the world,” Breitbart reported, adding that Mr Rasool noted that Mr Trump's Make America Great Again movement “was a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States”.

In response, South Africa's presidency said it “urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter”.

The presidency “remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America”, it said.

The representative for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Co-operation, Chrispin Phiri, said on X that the government “will engage through the diplomatic channel”.

Mr Rasool, 62, served as South Africa's ambassador to the US from 2010 to 2015 and was reappointed to the post in January. He has served time in prison for his anti-apartheid activism and later became a politician in the African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, the country’s first post-apartheid president.

Mr Rasool has expressed anger towards the Israeli government for its war in Gaza.

In February, in an interview with news site Zeteo, he said what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule “is on steroids in Palestine”.

The expulsion of an ambassador is a very rare move by the US and comes amid increased tensions between Washington and Pretoria.

South Africa has been a supporter of Palestinian rights and has pushed for a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel, one of Washington's biggest allies, of genocide in Gaza.

Mr Trump in February froze US aid to South Africa, citing a law in the country that he alleges allows land to be seized from white farmers. One of the president's closest allies, South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, has accused Mr Ramaphosa's government of having “openly racist ownership laws”.

Most farmland in South Africa is still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid and the government is under pressure to implement reforms.