U.S. expels ‘race-baiting' South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool

Yahoo

15-03-2025

March 15 (UPI) -- Sec. of State Marco Rubio announced the expulsion of South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool following remarks Rasool made accusing the United States of engaging in "supremacist" policies domestically and globally.
"South Africa's ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country," Rubio said Friday in a post on X.
"Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates [President Donald Trump]," Rubio said. "We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered persona non grata."
Rasool's remarks during a MISTRA online webinar titled, "Implications of changes in U.S. administration for South Africa and Africa," spurred his expulsion.
The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection hosted the webinar and defines itself as a "progressive institute" with a stated mission of advancing South Africa's development by "addressing the complex challenges that straddle issues of nation-formation, economic growth, social equity, science and technology, and the country's positioning in a globalized world."
Rasool's participation begins at the 13-minute mark, and he accuses the United States of engaging in "supremacist" actions in opposition to what Rasool calls an "incumbency" of those holding power.
Rasool said the Trump administration is continuing the prior Biden administration's "resistance" to the "emerging multi-polarity in the world" while trying to "maintain U.S. ideological hegemony" globally.
He cited the "arming of Ukraine and Israel" as evidence of the resistance and accused the Trump administration of "disrespect for the institutional base for the current hegemonic order."
Rasool cited U.S. negotiations with Russia and disrespect for NATO, the U.N., bypassing funding of the World Bank, and opposing South Africa chairing the G20 instead of the United States as evidence of "supremacist" actions by the Trump administration.
"What Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency, those who are in power, by mobilizing a supremacism against the incumbency at home and abroad," Rasool said.
"The supremacist assault on incumbency we see in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement ... as a response" that is rooted in "supremacist instinct," Rasool said.
He accused the Trump administration of trying to maintain political power among "whites" in the United States and globally.
"Very clear data shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate is projected to become 48% white and the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon," Rasool said.
He said the shifting U.S. demographic "needs to be factored in so we understand" Trump administration policies, including the an "instinctive nativist, racist" border wall being built, deportations and "export of the revolution."
Such actions are to "project white victimhood as a dog whistle that there is a global protected movement in embattled white communities," Rasool said while calling Trump administration policies a "supremacist insurgency against the incumbency" in the United States and globally.
His expulsion by U.S. officials requires Rasool to leave the United States by Friday, a State Department spokesperson told CNN.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Rasool's expulsion from the United States is "regrettable" in a statement posted on X Saturday.
"South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America," Ramaphosa said.
He urged "all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter."