South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, said he would wear his US sanction “as a badge of dignity,” CNN reported on Sunday, following his return to South Africa.
Rasool returned home with his wife to crowds of supporters at Cape Town International Airport, where he addressed them publicly.
“A declaration of persona non grata is meant to humiliate you,” Rasool told supporters at the airport. “But when you return to crowds like this, and with warmth… like this, then I will wear my persona non grata as a badge of dignity,” CNN quoted him as saying.
“It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets,” Rasool said, adding that it is important for South Africa to fix its relationship with the US.
“We don’t come here to say we are anti-American,” Rasool said, according to CNN. “We are not here to call on you to throw away our interests with the United States.”
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that Rasool was no longer welcome in the US.
The Jerusalem Post previously reported that Rubio accused Rasool of “race-baiting” and claimed he harbored hatred toward both the United States and President Donald Trump.
“We have nothing to discuss with him, and so he is considered persona non grata,” Rubio said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Financial aid to South Africa cut
Relations between Washington and South Africa have worsened since Trump signed an executive order in February cutting US financial assistance to South Africa. The White House cited South Africa’s land reform policies and its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, a key US ally, as reasons for the move.
“South Africa is confiscating land,” Trump said at the time, adding that “certain classes of people” are being treated “very badly,” as previously reported by the Post.