Ebrahim Rasool to return to Washington as ambassador at critical moment in SA-US relations

Ebrahim Rasool, who served as South Africa’s ambassador to the US during the Barack Obama administration, will be returning to Washington as ambassador during the Donald Trump presidency, according to official sources.

They confirmed to Daily Maverick that President Cyril Ramaphosa has reappointed him to the post he held from 2010 to 2015, though this has not been officially announced. He will leave soon for the US. 

Rasool is also a former Western Cape premier and leader of the ANC in the province. 

He will be arriving back in Washington at a critical moment in South African-US relations after Trump’s sweeping victory in Tuesday’s presidential elections, beating the Democratic Party’s candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris. Trump’s Republican Party also took the Senate from the Democrats and seemed likely to hold onto the House of Representatives. That would give him a very strong platform from which to launch his radical agenda.

And South Africa’s future relations with the US were looking rather unclear anyway as the ANC’s warm friendships with Russia, China and Iran had antagonised some influential members of Congress, mainly Republicans, who threatened to remove South Africa from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) as a result. This legislation gives eligible sub-Saharan African countries, including South Africa, duty-free access to the lucrative US market for most of their exports. It has benefited several South African exporters, particularly of cars, wine and fruit.

Read more in Daily Maverick: SA joins global nail-biting over US elections while Agoa uncertainties persist

Agoa as a whole is up for renewal by Congress next year and South Africa’s continued participation could be an issue which will demand Rasool’s diplomatic skills. There are also other issues on the immediate horizon such as the renewal of the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) which has pumped more than $8-billion into helping South Africa fight HIV/Aids over the past two decades.  

Rasool will have to hit the ground running as Pretoria has not had an effective fulltime ambassador in the post for several years. Sources in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) told Daily Maverick that Rasool would be well placed to conduct what could be difficult relations with the Trump administration because of the experience and the networks he built up during his first tour as ambassador. 

They also said that since America’s South African policy tended to remain largely unchanged over the years, and was mainly conducted by career diplomats in the State Department, Rasool’s contacts from his first tour as ambassador would probably still be useful. Whether that will remain true under a resurgent and unpredictable Trump though is not certain. 

Ramaphosa decided to appoint Rasool to the post before this week’s US elections, although Dirco sources told Daily Maverick that they had been expecting a Trump victory for some time. 

Rasool was generally considered to have been a success as ambassador between 2010 and 2015. Apart from managing relations between the two countries he also helped to provide a channel of communication between the Obama administration and America’s Muslim community at a time of fraught relations. 

Daily Maverick understands that former minister of trade, industry and competition Ebrahim Patel, who retired before the elections, was also considered as a possible ambassador to the US but turned down the offer. 

Rasool ran for Parliament on the ANC ticket in the elections this year but because the ANC vote dropped so steeply, to 40%, he was too far down on the ANC party list, at number 75, to get in. 

Daily Maverick texted Rasool to ask him for comment but he had not replied by the time of publication. DM