Expelled South African ambassador returns home and says will wear US
sanction as 'badge of dignity'
[March 24, 2025]
By GERALD IMRAY
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The South African ambassador who was
expelled from the United States and declared persona non grata by the
Trump administration was welcomed home at an airport Sunday by hundreds
of supporters who sang songs praising him.
Crowds at Cape Town International Airport surrounded Ebrahim Rasool and
his wife Rosieda as they emerged in the arrivals terminal in their
hometown, and they needed a police escort to help them navigate their
way through the building.
“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you," Rasool
told the supporters as he addressed them with a megaphone. "But when you
return to crowds like this, and with warmth ... like this, then I will
wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity.”
“It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets.”
Rasool was expelled for comments he made on a webinar that included him
saying that the Make America Great Again movement was partly a response
to “a supremacist instinct.”
Rasool said on his return home it was important for South Africa to fix
its relationship with the U.S. after President Donald Trump punished the
country and accused it of taking an anti-American stance even before the
decision to expel him.
The U.S. president issued an executive order last month cutting all
funding to South Africa, alleging its government is supporting the
Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran, and pursuing anti-white
policies at home.
“We don’t come here to say we are anti-American,” Rasool said to the
crowd. “We are not here to call on you to throw away our interests with
the United States.”
They were the ex-ambassador's first public comments since the Trump
administration declared him persona non grata over a week ago, removed
his diplomatic immunities and privileges, and gave him until this Friday
to leave the U.S.
It is highly unusual for the U.S. to expel a foreign ambassador.
Rasool stands by the comments cited by Rubio
Rasool was declared persona non grata by U.S. Secretary of State Marco
Rubio in a post on X on March 14. Rubio said Rasool was a “race-baiting
politician” who hates the U.S. and Trump.
Although Rubio didn't directly cite a reason, his post linked to a story
by the conservative Breitbart news site that reported on a talk Rasool
gave on a webinar organized by a South African think tank. In his talk,
Rasool spoke in academic language of the Trump administration’s
crackdowns on diversity and equity programs and immigration and
mentioned the possibility of a U.S. where white people soon would no
longer be in the majority.
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Expelled South Africa Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool speaks to supporters
upon his arrival at Cape Town International Airport, in Cape Town,
South Africa, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)
“The supremacist assault on incumbency, we see it in the domestic
politics of the U.S.A., 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
U.S.A. in which the voting electorate in the U.S.A. is projected to
become 48% white,” Rasool said in the talk.
On Sunday, he said he stood by those comments, and characterized
them as merely alerting intellectuals and political leaders in South
Africa that the U.S. and its politics had changed.
“It is not the U.S. of Obama, it is not the U.S. of Clinton, it is a
different U.S. and therefore our language must change,” Rasool said.
“I would stand by my analysis because we were analyzing a political
phenomenon, not a personality, not a nation, and not even a
government."
Pressure over genocide case against Israel
He also said that South Africa would resist pressure from the U.S. —
and anyone else — to drop its case at the International Court of
Justice accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The Trump administration has cited that case against U.S. ally
Israel as one of the reasons it alleges South Africa is
anti-American.
The Breitbart story Rubio cited when announcing Rasool's expulsion
was written by South African-born senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak,
who is Jewish and an ally of the Trump administration. Pollak is
also a contender to be the new U.S. ambassador to South Africa,
according to South African media.
Some of the supporters welcoming Rasool, who is Muslim, home to Cape
Town waved Palestinian flags and chanted “free Palestine.”
“As we stand here, the bombing (in Gaza) has continued and the
shooting has continued, and if South Africa was not in the
(International Court of Justice), Israel would not be exposed, and
the Palestinians would have no hope,” Rasool said. “We cannot
sacrifice the Palestinians ... but we will also not give up with our
relationship with the United States. We must fight for it, but we
must keep our dignity.”
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