The Trump administration has often been modest with South Africa on its apartheid legacy and criticism of Israel.
President Donald Trump’s administration has declared South Africa’s ambassador Ebrahim Lasor is the US Persona Non Grata.
In a social media post Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Lasor is “no longer welcome in our great country.”
“Ebrahim Rasool is a race-playing politician who hates America and Potus,” Rubio wrote using the acronym for the US president.
“We have nothing to talk to him, so he is considered Persona Non Grata.”
Rubio linked his remarks to an article by right-wing media outlet Breitbart. There, LaSaul says that during the 2024 election, Trump mobilized the “superficial instinct” and “dog whis” as “dog whis.”
LaSaul’s ouster is the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to accuse South Africa of supporting Palestinian rights and supporting the initiative at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which denies Israel, a US ally of the Gaza genocide.
Earlier this week, news outlet Semafor reported that veteran diplomat Rasool has been denied since Trump took office as a normal, routine opportunity to talk to US State Department officials and high-level Republicans.
Lasor returned to his post as US ambassador for South Africa in January. He previously played a role during the presidency of Barack Obama from 2010 to 2015.
South Africa is governed by the African National Congress (ANC), a party born out of the anti-apartheid struggle that ended the control of white minorities in the country.
But that government has become a target of certain rage for allies like the Trump administration of South African origins and right-wing billionaire Elon Musk.
Trump’s government has accused the ANC of discriminating against the white population.
“Trump has given South Africa aid and in February, when the White House closed almost entirely refugee entry for those who fled violence and oppression around the world, Trump offered swift citizenship for white Africans who “escape government-supported racially-based discrimination.”
The announcement was a response to the Land Distribution Act, which aimed to address the inequality that has continued since the apartheid era. The South African government says Trump is being given false information about laws not used to confiscate any land.
Vincent Magwenia, a spokesman for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, told Reuters that his country “will not participate in counterproductive megaphone diplomacy.”
Despite Trump’s portrayal of Africans as a besieged minority, South African authorities say the economic legacy of apartheid, with white South Africans almost controlling the economy, persists at a continuous level of economic inequality between blacks and whites.
A 2017 government audit found that blacks make up 80% of South Africa’s population, but only 4% of private farmland.
White Africans, who own the majority of South Africa’s farmland, make up only 8% of the population.
LaSaul and his family were expelled from their Cape Town home during the apartheid era, when blacks were forced to relocate to designated non-white areas with little resources or economic opportunity.
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