Trump Administration Orders Ambassador to Leave by Friday

The State Department says South Africa's ambassador to the United States, who was declared "persona non grata" last week, has until Friday to leave the country. After Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was no longer welcome in the US and posted his decision Friday on social media, South African embassy staff were summoned to the State Department and given a formal diplomatic note explaining the decision, the department said.

• "We made the embassy aware that Ambassador Rasool has been found unacceptable by the United States to be a representative of his country," the State Department said. It said Rasool's diplomatic privileges and immunities expired Monday and that he would be required to leave the United States by Friday. It was not clear if he was in the US now.

• Rubio announced his decision in a post on X as he was flying back to the United States from a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada. In it, he accused Rasool of being a "race-baiting politician" who hates President Trump. His post linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site about a talk Rasool gave earlier Friday in Johannesburg as part of a South African think tank's webinar. Rasool spoke about actions taken by the Trump administration in the context of a United States where white people soon would no longer be in the majority.
• Rasool was speaking by videoconference, and it was not clear if he was in South Africa, the United States, or elsewhere. It is highly unusual for the US to expel a foreign ambassador, although lower-ranking diplomats are more frequently targeted with persona non grata status, the AP reports.
• Rasool, who previously served as ambassador to the US from 2010 to 2015, has long been a controversial figure in South Africa, CBS News reports. He has expressed support for Hamas and boasted of his ties to the group's leadership.

• A statement last week from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said it had "noted the regrettable expulsion" of Rasool and called on its diplomatic officials "to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter." "Improving our relationship with the United States of America is a priority for us," Ramaphosa said Monday.
• Opposition parties in South Africa had been against Rasool's appointment as ambassador but they spoke out against the expulsion, the BBC reports. In a statement, the Economic Freedom Fighters party urged Ramaphosa "to not allow the country to be bullied by the orange clown occupying the White House."

(More South Africa stories.)