The recent expulsion of the South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, is the latest complication in the highly complex relationship between Washington and Pretoria. Rasool’s criticism of the Trump administration to a South African audience triggered this recent diplomatic scuffle, underscoring the fragility of U.S.-South Africa relations. Historically, the relationship has been defined by stark policy differences, reflecting deeper differences in values that have often placed the two partners on opposing sides of contentious foreign affairs matters. Despite this, the United States and South Africa have maintained functional and mutually beneficial relations. However, with escalating diplomatic and economic consequences looming, the question remains: Will this standoff lead to a lasting fracture or a recalibration of their strategic ties?
Q1: Who was Ambassador Rasool, and why was he expelled?
A1: In an unexpected X post last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the South African ambassador to the United States a persona non-grata. Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool is a career diplomat who previously served his first tour as South Africa’s ambassador to the United States during President Barack Obama’s administration from 2010 to 2015. Rasool was previously a senior leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, leading to his detention during apartheid. Eventually, Rasool served in the first democratically elected government of South Africa.
During this tenure, the ambassador cut his teeth in U.S. domestic politics and developed a network across Washington that Pretoria believed would be essential in helping it navigate the delicate diplomatic waters of Trump’s Washington. South Africa’s push to accuse Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, its drive to expand the BRICS bloc of countries as a seeming counterweight to the U.S. dollar, and the Trump administration’s attention on South Africa’s recently passed land expropriation laws held up the country to heightened criticism from the new administration, leading to the Trump team to announce a suspension all U.S. aid to South Africa in February.
But the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back came earlier this month when Ambassador Rasool, speaking at a South African think tank conference, commented that the MAGA movement is driven by a “white supremacist instinct.” In response, Rubio called Ambassador Rasool a “race-baiting politician who hates America and hates [President Donald Trump].” These remarks, which added to Ambassador Rasool’s pro-Palestinian views and criticism of Israel, further put him at odds with U.S. politicians.
Q2: What has been the trajectory of U.S.–South Africa relations?
A2: While U.S.-South Africa relations have been defined by stark differences that have often placed the two partners on opposite sides of contentious foreign affairs developments, the two countries nevertheless maintained functional and mutually beneficial relations since the end of Apartheid in the early 1990s. The differences stem from the historical context of South Africa’s black-majority struggle against the white-minority Apartheid regime. For decades, the African National Congress (ANC) represented the aspirations of the majority of South Africans whose civic and human rights had been denied under the white minority rule, a regime that the United States politically supported for decades. Post-Apartheid, the two countries interpret and appreciate that struggle differently, with the United States believing that it played a critical role in ending Apartheid thanks to years of organized protests in front of the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C., and a range of boycott movements in the 1980s and 1990s. The ANC, which waged a sustained struggle and later single-handedly ruled the country for 30 years post-Apartheid, has a more nuanced appreciation of the role of the outside support it received during its long liberation struggle. Importantly, they view the Soviet and Communist world’s political and diplomatic support received over decades as far more determinative for their victory over Apartheid. Thus, ANC leaders, since coming to power, have embraced a foreign policy that is fiercely nonaligned and resistant to pressures from Western countries while continuing to harbor appreciation for those like Russia and Cuba, who helped it under Apartheid. Still, Washington and Pretoria have managed to build a working relationship that has benefited both sides economically.
Under the Biden administration, however, the relationship showed serious signs of fraying. Tensions first arose over Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which the United States defined as a threat to world order but which South Africa led many African nations to refuse to condemn Russia. Pretoria further advocated for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine when Washington was pushing a far more confrontational line against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Then, in December 2022, the Lady R, a Russian cargo ship under U.S. sanctions for transporting ammunition from North Korea to Ukraine, secretly docked at South Africa’s Naval Base Simonstown to take on weapons to be used in the war in Ukraine in what the then–U.S. ambassador to South Africa declared was a violation of U.S. sanctions on Russia. This was followed shortly by South Africa conducting joint military exercises with both China and Russia, two U.S. adversaries who have continued to challenge U.S. influence in Africa. All these incidents prompted Republicans in Congress to ask for a review of the bilateral relations with South Africa.
Perhaps in a telling case that epitomizes the tensions between the two countries, the ongoing war in Gaza placed the United States and South Africa on a collision course when the latter accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians at the International Court of Justice. For many U.S. lawmakers, South Africa had gone too far and attacked a close ally and was undermining U.S. security interests. There had to be consequences.
President Donald Trump, a staunched supporter of Israel, who relocated the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 during his first term in office, moved swiftly to punish South Africa. The president announced a decision to cut aid to South Africa, citing South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2025, which he interpreted as an injustice to white Afrikaners, whom he now sees as being oppressed by the South African government.
Q3:What is at stake in the bilateral relationship?
A3: The immediate impacts of the devolving U.S.-South Africa relationship will be felt disproportionately by the latter. The United States is South Africa’s second-largest export market, with $14.7 billion worth of goods exported to the United States in 2024. South Africa’s largest export market is China. South Africa is also the leading non-crude exporter under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential trade program providing duty-free access to U.S. markets from eligible countries. South Africa’s exports under AGOA were approximately $3.7 billion in 2024.
South Africa’s economic growth has been sluggish over the past decade, but projections show a positive upward trend, assuming no new external shocks. If South Africa is removed from AGOA eligibility, which seems like an increasing likelihood, exports will undoubtedly suffer while South Africa searches for new markets.
Meanwhile, the suspension of assistance from the United States to South Africa has already had an immediate impact on health services, particularly HIV treatment. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the U.S. program that provides life-saving HIV care and treatment services, represented 17 percent of South Africa’s $400 million HIV budget. This funding supported the anti-retroviral medication for HIV treatment of 5.5 million people annually. Patients have undoubtedly been affected by the lack of access to antiretrovirals, with some estimates that the aid freeze could cause over half a million deaths in South Africa over the next decade.
Q4:What are the broader implications of this public spat with South Africa?
A4: The fight between the Trump administration and Pretoria was predictable, though that does not make it any less costly for either side. The new Trump administration likely sees the rupture of diplomatic and economic relations with Pretoria as a tough and useful warning for dozens of other countries, in particular, members of BRICS, which it fears could be lining up to oppose it on a range of political and economic issues: Don’t challenge Washington’s interests or else be prepared to face the consequences. In this case, the consequences for South Africa could be extensive and include a near-term economic recession that affects everything from prices to employment, as well as exacerbating domestic political divisions that could fracture the current coalition government.
Conversely, the Trump administration likely sees this aggressive approach as largely cost-free and even beneficial in the way that “good fences make good neighbors.” Setting clear expectations about what kind of criticism or opposition Washington is willing to brook and where its redlines are, it likely believes, sets clear markers, making it easier to advance mutually beneficial relations. Furthermore, it likely calculates that because South Africa’s friends in the BRICS won’t be able to step up and save Pretoria the economic pain lost trade and diplomatic ties with Washington costs it, Washington is sending a deeper message that the BRICS block is not yet strong enough to insulate its members from Washington’s wrath. Many will take the lesson and choose not to challenge Washington.
But it would be a mistake for the Trump team to take from this an outright victory. True, many poor, Global South countries will choose not to cross Washington on issues that matter to it, but nor will they trust an administration that exacts such high political and economic costs on countries who have the temerity to question Washington’s values and intentions. That loss of trust is not cost-free and likely speeds up the increasing divide between Africa and the Global South that the closure of USAID and the upcoming travel bans already set in motion. Measuring the costs of these actions is best done over years and not months, but what is clear is that a new tone is being set in Washington that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” While that might have worked in ancient Peloponnese, it feels like an outmoded and anachronistic device in twenty-first-century diplomacy.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele is a senior fellow and director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Cameron Hudson is a senior fellow in the Africa Program at CSIS. Khasai Makhulo is a research assistant with the Africa Program at CSIS. Catherine Nzuki is an associate fellow with the Africa Program at CSIS.