Rasool ‘stands by’ remarks on Trump administration upon arrival back in SA

A crowd gathers at Cape Town International Airport to welcome former South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, back to South Africa. 23 March 2025. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

By Tamsin Metelerkamp

23 Mar 2025

Just more than a week after he was declared ‘persona non grata’ in the US, the former South African ambassador has arrived at Cape Town International Airport.

Former South African ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool arrived at Cape Town International Airport on Sunday, 23 March, where he was welcomed home by fellow ANC members and trade union representatives.

A crowd gathered in the rain outside the airport to hear Rasool speak about his abrupt expulsion from the US, which came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared him “persona non grata” in a post on X on 14 March.

In his post Rubio called Rasool a “race-baiting politician who hates America and hates [the President of the United States]”.

Rubio’s comments were triggered by a lecture Rasool gave during a webinar hosted by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, in which he spoke critically about US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, saying Trump was showing “a disrespect for the institutional base of the current hegemonic order”.

Rasool Ebrahim Rasool arrives at Cape Town International Airport on 23 March 2025. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

‘The diplomacy of ubuntu’

At the airport on Sunday, Rasool said he stood by his comments.

“My remarks were… speaking to South African intelligentsia, intellectuals, political leaders and others to alert them to a changed tradition in the United States that the old way of doing business with the US was not going to work,” he said.

“It is not the US of [Barack] Obama, it is not the US of [Bill] Clinton. It is a different US, and therefore our language must change, not only to transactionality, but also a language that can penetrate a group that has clearly identified a fringe white community in South Africa as their constituency, surrounded by a white diaspora in the White House – that is what we are up against.

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

Read more: ‘Persona non grata’ – US expels SA ambassador Ebrahim Rasool from Washington

“There’s nothing that I will say there, that I would not say elsewhere… We were analysing a political phenomenon. Not a personality, not a nation and not even a government. And so I stand by that.”

Rasool, who previously served as South Africa’s ambassador to the US during the Barack Obama administration, had only been in Washington for about two months when he was declared persona non grata. He said he had started on a report about the situation for President Cyril Ramaphosa, and it had yet to be finalised.

A Palestinian flag is held above the crowd welcoming former South African ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool at Cape Town International Airport on 23 March 2025. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

Asked for his reflections on what was happening in the US, he said: “Sometimes you must get some distance between a moment designed to humiliate you and the anger that would come from it, and then expressing yourself. Give me a week or two of a vow of silence on that until I can finally make a distance between my former role in Washington and my new role as a private citizen.

“In a very strange way, the fact that what I said caught the attention of the [US] president and the secretary of state, and moved him enough to declare me persona no grata, says that the message went to the highest office in the United States of America – that they were stunned by our characterisation and they were not happy with it. And so the diplomacy of ubuntu has certainly worked because we bore witness to the values of our society.”

In a statement released later by Rasool he said of the US that “we must fight for the relationship, but not at the expense of our dignity because we will not be bullied. We must have an ambassador urgently in Washington, but not to confirm the idea that only a white ambassador devoid of our values can speak to a white president.

“We must never trade our sovereignty, lest we be told that China and Cuba cannot be our friends. Our friends are the mighty in the G20. But they are also the downtrodden, the oppressed and the occupied, whether in Sudan or whether in Palestine. Withdrawing from the International Court of Justice is not an option until Palestine is free and Israel is accountable.”

Ebrahim Rasool is welcomed at Cape Town International Airport. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

ANC member Mzoxolo Sonkobongela joins those welcoming Ebrahim Rasool at Cape Town International Airport on 23 March 2025. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

Mvusi Mdala, regional secretary of the ANC for the Dullah Omar region, was among those welcoming Ebrahim Rasool at the airport. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

Show of support

Before Rasool’s arrival on Sunday, Ramaphosa called on South Africans to “tone down” the homecoming reception for the former ambassador, according to an eNCA report.

However, this didn’t stop Western Cape ANC members from gathering to welcome Rasool at the airport, alongside representatives of the South African Communist Party and trade unions including the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union.

Khalid Sayed, ANC MP and Western Cape provincial spokesperson, told Daily Maverick the show of support for Rasool at the airport was in line with Ramaphosa’s instruction.

“There was nothing inflammatory that was said, particularly by the African National Congress. We are confident that we’ve most certainly listened to the advice of our President,” he said.

“[Being here] was very important because Ebrahim Rasool is a leader from the Western Cape. He’s our former premier, he’s the former provincial chairperson of the ANC, and particularly if we look at the manner in which he was expelled from the US… it was very important that the supporters of the ANC [and] the various members in civil society came out to provide moral support.”

Sayed said the ANC in the Western Cape was confident that Ramaphosa would handle Rasool’s expulsion from the US “in the best manner possible”.

A crowd gathers at Cape Town International Airport to welcome former ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool. (Photo: Tamsin Metelerkamp)

“As the ANC in the Western Cape… we are confident and we will most certainly take our cue from the ANC nationally on the matter,” he said.

Mvusi Mdala, regional secretary for the ANC in the Dullah Omar region, described Rasool as an “honest leader with integrity”, who had represented the country “very well”.

“As a sovereign country, as South Africa, we are entitled to define our developmental path and foreign policy posture. Our sovereignty is not subordinated to any other nation,” Mdala added.

“We are not ashamed of what [Rasool] said on the platform when he was addressing the people of South Africa.” DM

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‘The diplomacy of ubuntu’

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