Rubio Expels South Africa’s Ambassador To The US

The New York Times reports:

President Trump’s administration has officially expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, a spokesman for the South African president said on Saturday, calling the decision “regrettable.”

The ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, received an expulsion letter from the State Department, said Vincent Magwenya, the spokesman for President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa.

The move comes during a low point in the relationship between the two countries, with Mr. Trump having accused Mr. Ramaphosa’s government of discriminating against South Africa’s white minority and siding with one of America’s enemies, Iran.

The Associated Press reports:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country” and said he was “a race-baiting politician” who hates America and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Rubio’s post didn’t explain what was behind the decision but linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site. The story reported on a talk Rasool gave Friday on a webinar where he said the Make America Great Again movement could be seen as being a response to “a supremacist instinct.”

Trump had already issued an executive order last month cutting all funding to South Africa over some of its domestic and foreign policies. The order criticized the Black-led South African government on multiple fronts, saying it is pursuing anti-white policies at home and supporting “bad actors” in the world like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.

How long before Trump calls for invading South Africa? Rather obviously, this was done as a favor to Elon Musk, who is wildly unpopular in his home country.