Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expelled Ebrahim Rasool, the South African ambassador to the United States, declaring him "PERSONA NON GRATA." Rasool and his wife returned to South Africa on Sunday, with a police escort helping them through the terminal, and the reaction from Rasool, as well as the crowd, shows Rubio made the right call.
The announcement from Rubio on March 14 came as he also shared an article from Breitbart, in which he stressed the claim that President Donald Trump was supposedly a white supremacist, as was the MAGA movement.
South Africa's Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country.
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) March 14, 2025
Ebrahim 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.https://t.co/mnUnwGOQdx
As the Breitbart article explained:
Rasool was addressing the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) in Johannesburg in attempting to explain Trump’s recent foreign policy stances against South Africa’s property expropriation legislation and its alliances with Iran and Hamas, among others.
He said that white supremacism was motivating Trump’s “disrespect” for the “current hegemonic order” of the world, including institutions like the United Nations and the G-20.
He also said that the Make America Great Again movement was a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States, and suggested that South African farmers who had presented Afrikaner grievances within the U.S. were part of that global effort.
Rasool said that South Africa could lead the pushback to Trump's white supremacism, since the country was “the historical antidote to supremacism.”
...
Rasool has a public history of supporting Hamas. He has struggled to gain traction in Washington, DC, according to Semafor, which noted that he is being “frozen out” by key players.
There's a lot to unpack there. This is not someone who can act in good faith with the United States, and Rubio knows that. It's also something of an embarrassment for South Africa to speak about being "the historical antidote to supremacism." Not only did the country experience apartheid for decades, which only ended just somewhat recently, in 1994, but now white South Africans are under attack there, including and especially farmers.
In August 2023, The New York Times reported on a rally where a political leader, Julius Malema, speaking at a stadium in Johannesburg, shouted the chant of "Kill the Boer," speaking of white farmers. The crowd "roared back in approval." Even more newsworthy is how the reporter downplayed this shocking call, focusing on "[r]ight-wing commentators. Former President Barack Obama also looks to have ignored the targeting of white farmers in South Africa.
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Further, South Africa is involved in bringing a bogus case of genocide against Israel with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a court of the anti-Israel United Nations. The charges come following the October 7, 2023 attack that Hamas perpetrated against Israel.
One of the true few pro-Israel Democrats left, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, called South Africa out for the irony in January, telling them to "sit it out."
John Fetterman calls out South Africa for the genocide of white farmers.
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) January 11, 2024
I'm starting to feel bad for mocking him. He can wear hoodies & gym shorts all he wants if he keeps dropping more conservative talking points than people who claim to be "conservative" members of Congress. pic.twitter.com/XX07o5QcLM
So, how did Rasool react to being expelled? According to The Hill, he was welcomed home by South Africa with a cheerful reception on Sunday.
"A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you," Rasool shared with the crowd, as he conveniently had a megaphone. Performance artistry much? "But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth … like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity," he added.
Although he said that "it was not our choice to come home," which could be debatable, given the remarks he made about the country he served as the ambassador to, he added that "we come home with no regrets."
The Hill also noted that Rasool served in the position from 2010 to 2015 before returning to it once more, at least for less than two months. Unfortunately, problems with South Africa have been going on for some time, and we don't need it here in our own back yard.
