SECRETARY of State Marco Rubio expels Ebrahim Rasool after he criticised Donald Trump in an online lecture
Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States “persona non grata” on Friday, describing him as a “race-baiting politician who hates America”.
In a post on X Rubio wrote that Ebrahim Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country”, and linked to a report from the conservative Breitbart news site about an online lecture the ambassador gave about the Trump administration’s foreign policy and its implications for South Africa.
“What Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilising a supremacism against the incumbency, at home . . . and abroad,” Rasool said in the online event hosted by South Africa’s Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.
Rasool’s expulsion is the latest episode in the rapid deterioration of relations between Washington and Pretoria since Trump took office.
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