Rubio Declares South African Ambassador ‘Persona Non Grata’ After Trump Insult

Late last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a firm stance, declaring that the South African ambassador to the U.S. is no longer welcome.

On Friday, Rubio posted on the social media platform X, labeling Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool as “a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS.”

“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” Rubio added, linking to a Breitbart News article highlighting controversial remarks Rasool made about President Donald Trump.

The expulsion followed Rasool’s comments at a recent event, where he claimed that Trump was at the forefront of a global white supremacist movement.

Speaking at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) in Johannesburg, Rasool analyzed Trump’s foreign policy, particularly his opposition to South Africa’s land expropriation policies and its alliances with Iran, Hamas, and other entities.

“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 — I think I’ve illustrated — abroad as well,” Rasool stated, according to Breitbart.

“So in terms of 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,” he elaborated.

“And that the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon. And so that needs to be factored in, so that we understand some of the things that we think are instinctive, nativist, racist things, I think that there’s data that, for example, would support that, that would go to this wall being built, the deportation movement, et cetera et cetera. So I think I’d mention that,” he continued.

“It’s no accident that Elon Musk has involved himself in UK politics, and elevated a Nigel Farage and the Reform movement, in much the same way that he was instructed that on his way to the Munich security summit, Vice President Vance addressed the Alternative für Deutschland [AfD] to strengthen them in their election campaign,” Rasool remarked.

“And that, then, begins to say, what then was the role of Afrikaners in that whole makeup. And very clearly, it’s to project white victimhood as a dog whistle that there is a global protective movement that is beginning to envelop embattled white communities or apparently embattled white communities,” he added.

“It may not be true, it may not make sense, but that is not the dog whistle that is being heard in a global, white base. So I think we need to understand all of that. Another discontinuity — it’s almost that they are pitting a supremacist insurgency against the incumbency,” Rasool concluded.

He went on to suggest that South Africa could lead efforts to counter Trump’s supposed white supremacism, arguing that the country was “the historical antidote to supremacism.”

Rasool has also previously shown public support for Hamas. According to Semafor, his efforts to gain influence in Washington, D.C., have been largely unsuccessful, as he is reportedly being “frozen out” by key figures.