Defiant Rasool meets Lamola on return home

Rasool arrived at Cape Town International Airport on Sunday to a raucous welcome from hundreds of ANC supporters, who cheered and applauded as he addressed them.  

The former ambassador was expelled last week by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after he described Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement as a supremacist reaction to growing diversity in the United States.  

In a post on X, Rubio labelled Rasool a "race-baiting politician” who harbours “disdain for President Trump,” declaring that he was no longer welcome in the U.S.  

The move followed comments Rasool made during an online seminar, where he characterised Trump’s movement as “a white supremacist response” to demographic shifts in the U.S.  

Rasool, who served as Washington's ambassador from 2010 to 2015 under then-president Jacob Zuma, returned to the U.S. in January following Trump’s election victory.  

On Monday, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation confirmed that Minister Lamola had met with Rasool.  

"A formal report will be submitted to President Cyril Ramaphosa for consideration. Pending this, the department will not engage in further public discussions on the matter," DIRCO said in a statement.  

Speaking at the airport on Sunday, Rasool defended his remarks about Trump’s policies, saying he was analysing a political trend and cautioning South Africans that the “old way of doing business with the U.S. was not going to work.”  

"Our language must change not only to transactionality but also to a language that can penetrate a group that has clearly identified a fringe white community in South Africa as their constituency," he said.  

Rasool said his expulsion proved that his message had been heard at the highest levels of the U.S. government.  

"The fact that what I said caught the attention of the president and the secretary of state and moved them enough to declare me persona non grata says that the message reached the highest office," he added.  

Rasool linked his expulsion to South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice over alleged acts of genocide in Gaza.  

"We would have preferred to return home saying we secured AGOA [the African Growth and Opportunity Act], but we could not do so by withdrawing our case at the ICJ against Israel," he said.  

He argued that South Africa’s presence at the ICJ was critical in holding Israel accountable.  

"If South Africa was not at the ICJ, Israel would not be exposed, and the Palestinians would have no hope. Our relationship with America over 50 years has not always been with the White House.

 "It has sometimes been with Congress, and it has always been with the people of the United States," he said.  

Rasool is expected to submit a full report to President Ramaphosa in the coming days.  

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