Ramaphosa assures SA shouldn’t have sleepless nights over US envoy expulsion

President Cyril Ramaphosa is putting a brave face on the Trump administration’s abrupt expulsion of South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.  

“Our relations with the United States are going to be put on even keel, so I would like the people of South Africa not to have sleepless nights,” he told journalists at an early childhood development event in Braamfontein on Monday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Rasool “persona non grata” in a post on X on Friday, expelling him from the country. He called Rasool a “race-baiting politician who hates Trump and hates America” because of remarks Rasool made in a webinar earlier in the day, suggesting Trump was pursuing a white supremacist agenda at home and abroad.

The US State Department has given Rasool until Friday to leave the country. 

Ramaphosa was asked if he thought Rasool had erred in publicly criticising Trump. He said Rasool would return to South Africa and give him a full report. 

“So I will wait for a full report from him, but at the same time we have noted this displeasure that has been expressed by the United States, particularly about the remarks he made… and we will engage with them as we are already engaging with them.”

The President said the engagement would take a variety of forms, including through the special envoys he announced last month, but also through the business community, labour and many others, including from the government.

“Improving our relationship with the United States of America is a priority for us. They are our second-largest trading partner after China, and we will therefore seek, as we must, to ensure that our relations are on a good footing, which is one thing that we do with all countries in the world.”

Ramaphosa was asked if he thought South Africa had been “blue-ticked” (ignored) because Rubio had announced Rasool’s expulsion on X rather than through a formal diplomatic note to the South African government.

Ramaphosa said he did not think South Africa had been blue-ticked: “We are being recognised, much as it first came out in a tweet, but it did finally come out in a formal communication.

“And we will engage with the United States of America in a formal way. We will do so with deep respect for them and for President Trump as well.

“We will deal with the US as an important global player, as we are also an important player.

“So, our relations to the United States are going to be put on even keel, so I would like the people of South Africa not to have sleepless nights, have peaceful nights knowing that we are working on ensuring that this relationship is put on a good footing going forward, because we trade together, we play together in various sports, and we are political interlocutors in a number of forums, and so we have to deal with each other without any doubt.

“We are not being blue-ticked, we are engaging,” Ramaphosa added, noting that he understood blue-ticking to mean being ignored.

“We are not being ignored. We are continuing to engage with them,” he said, adding that Rasool had done a great deal of work to ensure meaningful diplomatic engagement. Rasool had barely been in his post for two months. 

“So this is a hiccup, a hiccup that we are working on straightening out.

“So we are not being blue-ticked, we cannot be blue-ticked, because we are such an important player to the United States of America, as they are an important player to South Africa.

“From a political point of view, from a trade point of view, and from a whole number of other important points of view. So we are not blue-tickable… We cannot be ignored.”

Asked how South Africa intended to engage with the US, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said there were engagements at various levels and the Department of Trade and Industry was looking at a trade deal proposal that South Africa could put to the Trump administration. 

“We have areas of alignment and convergence between ourselves and the United States, and we would like to focus on those areas and build on them in terms of taking the relationship forward. So all is not lost.”

There is already speculation about who will replace Rasool, who was a political appointee though he had served as ambassador to the US once before, between 2010 and 2015 during the Barack Obama administration.

Sources in the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said Rasool would probably be replaced with a career diplomat who would be unlikely to make any controversial statements. DM