Comments from South Africa\u2019s ambassador about the Trump administration were \u201cunacceptable\u201d and \u201cobscene,\u201d State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Monday, providing further explanation why the envoy is no longer welcome in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool \u201cpersona non grata\u201d on Friday after the diplomat said that Trump and his supporters are effectively a \u201csupremacist\u201d movement projecting \u201cWhite victimhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese remarks were unacceptable to the United States,\u201d Bruce said in a briefing. \u201cNot just to the president, but to every American. They were pretty much obscene when it came to the nature of what was alleged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“At the very least, what we should expect is a standard of some respect \u2014 basic, low-level respect \u2014 if you’re in a position that is going to help facilitate any kind of diplomatic relationship with another country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rasool is expected to leave the US by Friday, Bruce said, one week after State Department staff met with South African diplomats to communicate their decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bruce said Rasool\u2019s comments came on top of other positions by the South African government that the White House finds problematic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those include land laws Trump and Rubio allege are unjust toward White South African farmers, a \u201cgrowing relationship\u201d with Russia and Iran, and bringing accusations of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The racially charged feud between the two countries was partly spurred by Trump\u2019s South African-born billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who has spread the conspiracy theory of a \u201cgenocide\u201d against South Africa\u2019s White farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has signed an executive order halting US foreign assistance to South Africa and declared that the US refugee system would give priority to Afrikaner \u201cvictims of unjust racial discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration has claimed South Africa is expropriating their land, although authorities have not confiscated any private land since the end of apartheid in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rubio\u2019s declaration on Rasool came after his comments, made during a lengthy virtual event with a think-tank in Johannesburg, were reported by Breitbart News last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US State Department says comments by former South African envoy in Washington Ebrahim Rasool were obscene and lacked basic, low-level respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":817068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[22035,10022],"class_list":["post-817422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-ebrahim-rasool","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817423,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817422\/revisions\/817423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}