Brussels 15.03.2025 South Africa’s expelled Ambassador to the United States, H.E. Ebrahim Rasool, has been given 72 hours to leave the U.S.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, confirmed to News24 that Pretoria was making arrangements for his return.
Once in South Africa, he will be expected to debrief to the government in Pretoria.

I applaud @secrubio for calling out the South African ambassador’s disgraceful, anti-American hate speech. Suffice it to say that he is not cut out for diplomacy. https://t.co/PznudmAVbF

— Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman (@SenateForeign) March 14, 2025

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“And then, from there, Pretoria will assess what are the next steps that need to be done and attend to it.”

While lower-ranking diplomats are sometimes expelled, it’s highly unusual in the US for it to happen to a more senior official.

In his post on Friday, March 14, Rubio linked to an article from the right-wing outlet Breitbart that quoted some of Rasool’s recent comments made during an online lecture about the Trump administration.

At the event, Rasool said Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” as the white population finds itself a minority in the U.S.

“We see it in the domestic politics of the USA, the MAGA 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 said.

The diplomat suggested that South Africa was under attack because “we are the historical antidote to supremacism”. In response, Rubio called Rasool “PERSONA NON GRATA”, which signified a new step in degradation of the bilateral relations.