By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The office of President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the U.S. decision to expel South Africa’s ambassador Ebrahim Rasool as “regrettable.”
Rasool was expelled after US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, took to social media, X, to declare that Rasool was not welcome in the US.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered persona non grata” [person not welcome] (sic),” Rubio post reads on social media.
In a statement, The Presidency noted the regrettable expulsion of Rasool and urged all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.
“South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America,” the Presidency said.
In a 2 February post on his social media platform, Truth Social on 2 February — days after Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act into law — Trump said he was cutting aid because “South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”, warning that “The United States won’t stand for it, we will act”.
Trump followed that up with an executive order cutting aid, and falsely claiming that the Expropriation Act enabled the government “to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”.
Rasool — who has previously been critical of Trump — first served as South Africa’s top envoy to the US from 2010 to 2015 and was redeployed to the post this year.
Washington has not yet appointed a new envoy to Pretoria after former ambassador Reuben Brigety announced his resignation last November, effective from January 2025, in line with the standard transition after a change in the US presidential administration.