By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The United States has justified the 72-hour ultimatum given to South African Ambassador in Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, to leave the country, insisting that his remarks about President Donald Trump were “unacceptable.”
“These remarks were unacceptable to the United States, not just to the president, but to every American,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters at a daily briefing on Monday.
The expulsion of Rasool last week follows an article in which he was quoted as saying President Donald Trump was leading a white supremacist movement.
At an event, he said Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US.
“We see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA, in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white,” he said.
He suggested that South Africa was under attack because “we are the historical antidote to supremacism”.
In response, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a post on X, accused Rasool of hating the US and Trump, saying the ambassador was “no longer welcome in our great country”.
According to the State Department spokesperson, “At the very least, what we should expect is a standard of some respect – basic, low-level respect – if you’re in a position that is going to help facilitate any kind of diplomatic relationship with another country.”
She added that Rasool’s privileges as ambassador expired on Monday and he must leave the country by Friday.
Relations between the US and South Africa have deteriorated since Trump assumed office in January as US president, with his ally and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, appointed to head DOGE.
The US condemned a land administration law enacted by South Africa, the Expropriation Act, which it claims targets the white minority by allowing the government to take away their private land, an allegation Pretoria denies.
After the freezing of financial aid, South Africa’s government said the US president’s actions were based on “a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting our great nation”. Despite being a minority, whites hold the majority of land ownership in South Africa, dating back to the apartheid era.
