In a recent move against the African nation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared on Friday that South Africa's ambassador to the US "is no longer welcome" in the US. In an X post, Rubio called Ebrahim Rasool a "race-baiting politician" who hates President Donald Trump. Rubio referred to the South African diplomat as "persona non grata."

Rubio shared the post while flying back to Washington after a Group of 7 foreign ministers' meeting in Canada, and the State Department did not provide an immediate explanation for the decision. However, Rubio shared a link to a Breitbart article about a talk Rasool gave earlier on Friday during a webinar hosted by a South African think tank. In the talk, Rasool discussed actions taken by the Trump administration in the context of a future United States where white people would no longer be the majority. Both Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk, who grew up in South Africa, have criticised the country's Black-led government for introducing a new land law they believe discriminates against white people.

Expelling a foreign ambassador is rare for the United States, though lower-ranking diplomats are more commonly declared persona non grata. Even during major diplomatic tensions — such as the Cold War, Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, allegations of meddling in the 2016 US election, and the 2018 poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in Britain — neither Washington nor Moscow chose to expel each other's ambassadors. Phone calls made to the South African Embassy for comments went unanswered as they were made at the end of the workday. Rasool previously served as South Africa's ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2015 and returned to the position in January.

During his childhood, Rasool and his family were forced to leave their Cape Town neighbourhood, which had been designated for white residents. He became an anti-apartheid activist, spent time in prison for his efforts, and was known as a close associate of Nelson Mandela, the country's first post-apartheid president. Rasool later joined Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) political party and pursued a political career.

During Friday's webinar, Rasool, speaking via video call, discussed the Trump administration's actions against diversity and equity programs, as well as immigration, using academic language. “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,” the South African ambassador said, citing Musk's outreach to far-right individuals in Europe, he referred to it as a "dog whistle" in a global movement that aims to unite those who identify as members of a "embattled white community." Rasool provided advice on how to deal with Trump's government without specifically criticising him, saying, “This is not a moment to antagonise the United States” and “Let’s avoid things that cock a snoot at the United States.”

Trump's decision to remove him from his position followed an executive order that cut aid and assistance to South Africa’s Black-led government. Trump claimed that South Africa’s Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch colonial settlers, were being targeted by a new law that allows the government to seize private land. However, the South African government has denied that the law is linked to race, stating that Trump's remarks about the country and the law are misleading and inaccurate. Trump claimed that land was being taken from Afrikaners, but no land has actually been seized under the law. The law allows the government to take land only in specific cases, such as when the land is unused or if redistributing it would serve the public interest. This law is intended to correct injustices from South Africa’s apartheid era, during which Black people had their land unfairly taken from them.

Donald Trump announced a plan to grant refugee status to Afrikaners, a group that is part of South Africa's white minority. Elon Musk, who leads Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, has drawn attention to South Africa's land law on social media, describing it as a threat to the country's white minority. In a post on X earlier this month, Musk again criticised the South African government for its business choices, claiming that it had chosen not to work with his Starlink "because I'm not Black."