Rubio declares South Africas race-baiting ambassador persona non grata

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that South Africa’s ambassador to the United States “is no longer welcome” in the country, in the latest Trump administration move targeting the African nation.Rubio, in a post on X, accused Ebrahim Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates President Donald Trump and declared him “persona non grata.” Rubio linked to a Breitbart story about a talk Rasool gave during a South African think tank’s webinar.Rasool, speaking by videoconference, talked about Trump ally Elon Musk’s outreach to far-right figures in Europe as a “dog whistle” in a global movement trying to rally people who see themselves as part of an “embattled white community.”The State Department did not have additional details about the ban, and it was unclear whether Rasool was even in the U.S.at the time the decision was made.

Rubio posted as he was flying back to Washington from a Group of 7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada.It is highly unusual for the U.S.to expel a foreign ambassador, although lower-ranking diplomats are more frequently targeted with persona non grata status.At the height of U.S.-Russia diplomatic expulsions during the Cold War and then again over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, allegations of interference in the 2016 U.S.

election and the poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in Britain, neither Washington nor Moscow saw fit to expel the respective ambassadors.Phone calls to the South African Embassy seeking comment, made at the end of the work day, were not answered.Rasool previously served as his country’s ambassador to the U.S.from 2010 to 2015 before returning in January.As a child, he and his family were evicted from a Cape Town neighborhood designated for white people.

Rasool became an active anti-apartheid campaigner, serving time in prison and identifying as a comrade of the country’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela.He later became a politician in Mande...