For the authorities in South Africa, decorum is the name of the diplomatic game as the Trump-led administration in the United States heightens tensions by expelling Pretoria’s main man in Washington.
The South African Presidency says it has noted with regret the expulsion of its ambassador to Washington Mr. Ebrahim Rasool but urged calm in a statement.
The Presidency’s tone has been measured in its reaction to the expulsion as relations with Washington enters the ”territory of brinkmanship’.
It all came to a head when Ambassador Rasool during a seminar vilified the Trump administration’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) doctrine, describing it as supremacist.
He told seminarians that: “The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA movement — the Make America Great Again 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, and that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon”.
The row with Washington has been sharpened by the role of South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk who is one of Trump’s senior advisers especially on foreign issues.
Musk’s views inform the Trump administration’s abrasive approach toward South Africa’s land reform scheme and a residual anger over stringent requirements which prevent his Starlink satellite service to set up shop in Africa’s biggest economy.
Musk was born in South Africa in the early 1970s, a turbulent decade for the black majority living under apartheid discrimination. As the other end of that system divide was Rasool whose family was forcibly evicted from a land after the apartheid regime converted their sprawling settlement as a “whites only area.” This helped to influence his views in opposition to apartheid.
Meanwhile as he was given 72 hours to leave Washington. the administration in Pretoria will urge all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the South African government say they will remain committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States despite the expulsion of Mr Rasool which brought a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two nations.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Friday night that Rasool had been declared persona non grata, accusing him of being a “race-baiting politician” who harbours hostility toward America and President Donald Trump.
“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Rubio stated on social media platform X.
“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”
Rasool, who began his second tenure as ambassador in Washington in January 2025, has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration.
His expulsion follows a series of contentious exchanges between Washington and Pretoria, including the US freezing aid to South Africa in February.
The Trump administration cited South Africa’s land reform policies, which it claims unfairly target white farmers, as the reason for the aid suspension.
South Africa has denied these allegations, asserting that the reforms aim to address historical inequalities.
The South African Presidency responded to the expulsion on Saturday, calling it “regrettable” and urging all parties to maintain diplomatic decorum.
This latest development underscores the growing strain in US-South Africa relations, which have been marked by disagreements over land reform, human rights and Pretoria’s stance on international issues.
Two of these contentious issues are the crisis in Gaza and the Russo-Ukraine conflict.
WN/as/APA