The US effectively expels South Africa’s ambassadors to Washington, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio accusing the envoy of hating the country and hating President Donald Trump.
“The US ambassador for South Africa is no longer welcome in our great power,” Rubio posted on X on Friday, the Guardian reported.
Rubio accused Ambassador Ebrahim Lasor of being a “retiring politician who hates America and hates @potus,” and referenced Trump on the handle of his White House X account. “We have nothing to talk to him, so he is considered Persona Non Grata.”
Neither Rubio nor the State Department immediately explained the decision. But Rubio links to Breitbart’s story of LaZule’s previous talk as part of a webinar for a South African think tank on Friday, where he spoke about the actions the Trump administration took in a US context where white people no longer become majority.
Rasool points out Elon Musk’s outreach for far-right figures in Europe, calling it “dog whi” and “dog whi.”
Rasool became the party of Nelson Mandela, a former anti-apartheid campaigner who served time in prison for his activism and became a politician at the African National Congress, and the country’s first apartheid president.
The expulsion of ambassadors is a very rare move by the US, but low diplomats are more frequently targeted with non-persona Grata status.
In response, the South African presidency said in an online post he was focusing on the “unfortunate expulsion of South Africa’s ambassadors,” urging everyone to maintain “established diplomatic decorations” on the issue.
This is the latest development in the heightened tensions between Washington and Pretoria. In February, Trump frozen our aid to South Africa and cited the laws of the country that claimed he allowed the land to be seized from white farmers.
Last week, Trump spurred more tensions, saying South African farmers welcomed them to settle in the US after repeated accusations that the government was “confiscating” the land from white people.
Trump posted on his true social platform: “Peasanctuaries (with family!) from South Africa are trying to escape from the country for security reasons, but will be invited to the United States on a rapid path to citizenship.”
One of Trump’s closest allies is South Africa-born billionaire Musk, who accused South Africa’s government of Cyril Ramaphosa of having “open and racist possession laws.”
South Africa was ruled by white African leaders during apartheid. Apartheid has vehemently suppressed the country’s black majority, including forcing them to live in isolated towns and rural “hometowns.” Africans descended primarily from the Dutch, and not only did the Dutch begin colonizing South Africa in 1652, they are also Dutch-sponsored French Huguenot refugees.
More than 30 years after the white minority rules ended, South Africa remains extremely unequal, with land and wealth still concentrated among white people, who make up most of the population, with about half of the Indigenous Afrikaans speakers and 81% of black people.
However, some South Africans claim they are discriminated against, and often cite the country’s positive conduct laws.