{"id":10225,"date":"2025-03-17T12:50:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T04:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225"},"modified":"2025-03-17T12:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T04:50:17","slug":"why-south-africa-is-in-trumps-crosshairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225","title":{"rendered":"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs\u00a9\u00a0Jim Lo Scalzo\/EPA-EFE\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, diplomatic incidents can be boiled down to a clash of personalities or a minor misunderstanding.<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s not the case in what\u2019s transpiring between the Trump administration and South Africa. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that South Africa\u2019s envoy to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was \u201cno longer welcome in our great country,\u201d after the latter had delivered a speech virtually to a Johannesburg think tank where he cast the Trump administration as waging \u201ca supremacist insurgency\u201d against the West\u2019s political establishment and pandering to an illusory \u201cWhite victimhood\u201d among its base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubio described Rasool \u2014 a celebrated anti-apartheid activist and a veteran diplomat who had a previous stint in Washington under his belt \u2014 as \u201ca race-baiting politician who hates America\u201d and President Donald Trump, and declared him \u201cpersona non grata.\u201d The following day, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed the expulsion, saying it was \u201cregrettable\u201d and urging all parties to \u201cmaintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rasool\u2019s rhetoric was conspicuous for a diplomat in station. But his remarks came after weeks of being frozen out by his interlocutors in Washington. According to a report in Semafor last week, Rasool<\/a> had \u201cfailed to secure routine meetings with State Department officials and key Republican figures since Trump took office in January.\u201d A South African diplomat told the news site that the cards were stacked against the ambassador: \u201cA man named Ebrahim, who is Muslim, with a history of pro-Palestine politics, is not likely to do well in that job right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s animus is not just aimed at Rasool, but the whole South African government. The African nation\u2019s stance on Israel\u2019s war in Gaza \u2014 it has led the charge at the International Court of Justice, triggering a case investigating Israel for genocide \u2014 riled officials in both the Trump administration and its predecessor. Rubio represented this as \u201canti-Americanism\u201d and skipped a foreign ministers meeting of the Group of 20 major economies bloc, which South Africa is chairing this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Trumpworld, the enmity goes deeper.\u00a0<\/strong>Online fearmongering among white nationalists has made its way into Trump\u2019s talking points, with the president highlighting the supposed oppression of White farmers \u2014 principally ethnic Afrikaners, or the descendants of 17th-century Dutch colonists \u2014 and the perceived risk of violence they face, as well as the potential expropriation of their lands. Elon Musk, the South African-born tech oligarch working closely with Trump, has\u00a0repeatedly invoked the far-right slogan<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cWhite genocide\u201d in the country, claims that a South African court\u00a0recently declared<\/a>\u00a0were \u201cnot real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk is just one of a number of tech billionaires in Trump\u2019s inner circle with ties to South Africa<\/a> \u2014 others include PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and White House cryptocurrency adviser David Sacks \u2014 whose childhoods of relative privilege under the apartheid regime and dismay at the way the country has developed since the fall of apartheid may shadow their views of contemporary politics. Trump has turned sharply against South Africa in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe move against the ambassador follows a series of Trump criticisms against the South African government, including an executive order last month denouncing new legislation that established a program for expropriation of unused agricultural land that White owners refused to sell to Black purchasers,\u201d explained my colleague Karen DeYoung<\/a>. \u201cTrump ordered the cancellation of all U.S. assistance programs to South Africa and offered U.S. admission and resettlement \u2018for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White people in South Africa are not more vulnerable to crime than any other racial group, according to police data<\/a>. Though just 7 percent of the population, they own about half of the country\u2019s land and are economically better off than other communities by most measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some bemused onlookers think Trump and his allies are doing this for nativist supporters at home. \u201cIt plays into the fears of White people in America and elsewhere: \u2018We Whites are threatened,\u2019\u201d Max du Preez, a White South African writer and historian, told the New York Times<\/a> of Trump\u2019s attacks on his country. \u201cThey\u2019re playing on the thing of the White Christian civilization being threatened,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd that has a lot of appeal among the evangelicals and others in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patrick Gaspard, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa, lamented the breakdown in the relationship and pointed to how the secretary of state was, as a political rival, far more critical of Trump than South Africa\u2019s expelled ambassador. \u201cWe should note that Marco Rubio himself said far worse things about Donald Trump in the past than anything said by Ambassador Rasool,\u201d Gaspard posted on social media<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s be real about what these people are up to with their obsessive targeting of South Africa and their performance of grievance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, Trump\u2019s attention has had a rallying effect on an oft-fractured and fractious political scene.<\/strong> The administration\u2019s move to cut assistance \u201chas now pushed the most stridently pro-Western voices to the margins of society as the bulk of South African opinion, including among whites, moves toward opposing Trump\u2019s actions,\u201d Imraan Buccus, a senior research associate at South Africa\u2019s Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy<\/a>. \u201cIndeed, leading Afrikaner figures and organizations have made it clear that they prefer to remain in South Africa rather than to become refugees in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think tank that urges foreign policy restraint, said the growing rift between the two countries predates Trump, with Biden officials irked with South Africa\u2019s apparent indifference to Russian aggression in Ukraine even as it loudly championed the Palestinian cause. \u201cWashington sees South Africa\u2019s policy of nonalignment as a cover for a tilt toward U.S. rivals\u201d in China and Russia, Shidore told me, adding that Trump has now added \u201ca racial lens\u201d to the relationship as he tries \u201cto achieve escalation dominance against U.S. rivals at home and abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump officials have cast South Africa\u2019s G-20 agenda as one based on \u201cDEI,\u201d or \u201cdiversity, equity, inclusion\u201d \u2014 principles derided by the American right wing as leftist virtue-signaling and attacked by the Trump administration via executive order. U.S. critics of South Africa cast the postapartheid state as corrupt and failing, but others see the country\u2019s fitful transformation from a white supremacist regime to a multicultural democracy as an unparalleled success story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his remarks last week, Rasool said South Africa was not \u201cunique\u201d in being targeted by an administration that is launching trade wars with allies and airstrikes on militant groups elsewhere. \u201cBut,\u201d Rasool added, \u201cwe fit into that because we are the historical antidote to supremacism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, diplomatic incidents can be boiled down to a clash of personalities or a minor misunderstanding.\u00a0That\u2019s not the case in what\u2019s transpiring between the Trump administration and South Africa. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that South Africa\u2019s envoy to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was \u201cno longer welcome in our great country,\u201d after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[735,1713,1724],"class_list":["post-10225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-africa","tag-south","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes, diplomatic incidents can be boiled down to a clash of personalities or a minor misunderstanding.\u00a0That\u2019s not the case in what\u2019s transpiring between the Trump administration and South Africa. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that South Africa\u2019s envoy to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was \u201cno longer welcome in our great country,\u201d after the […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-17T04:50:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-17T04:50:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1-7.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sddm0805\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/\",\"name\":\"LISTEN WORLD\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1-7.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1-7.jpg\",\"width\":768,\"height\":512},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225\",\"name\":\"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs - LISTEN WORLD\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-17T04:50:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-17T04:50:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#\/schema\/person\/401cf16edf5abe8109bc4f81d40e2298\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"\u9996\u9875\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#\/schema\/person\/401cf16edf5abe8109bc4f81d40e2298\",\"name\":\"sddm0805\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b923aee309f3523e57a0208042f74bc6f6899d4ce27b86964e2e49bf87805ff1?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b923aee309f3523e57a0208042f74bc6f6899d4ce27b86964e2e49bf87805ff1?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g\",\"caption\":\"sddm0805\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?author=11\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs - LISTEN WORLD","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs - LISTEN WORLD","og_description":"Sometimes, diplomatic incidents can be boiled down to a clash of personalities or a minor misunderstanding.\u00a0That\u2019s not the case in what\u2019s transpiring between the Trump administration and South Africa. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that South Africa\u2019s envoy to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was \u201cno longer welcome in our great country,\u201d after the […]","og_url":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225","og_site_name":"LISTEN WORLD","article_published_time":"2025-03-17T04:50:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-03-17T04:50:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":512,"url":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1-7.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"sddm0805","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#website","url":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/","name":"LISTEN WORLD","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1-7.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1-7.jpg","width":768,"height":512},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#webpage","url":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225","name":"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs - LISTEN WORLD","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2025-03-17T04:50:15+00:00","dateModified":"2025-03-17T04:50:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#\/schema\/person\/401cf16edf5abe8109bc4f81d40e2298"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=10225#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"\u9996\u9875","item":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why South Africa is in Trump\u2019s crosshairs"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#\/schema\/person\/401cf16edf5abe8109bc4f81d40e2298","name":"sddm0805","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b923aee309f3523e57a0208042f74bc6f6899d4ce27b86964e2e49bf87805ff1?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b923aee309f3523e57a0208042f74bc6f6899d4ce27b86964e2e49bf87805ff1?s=96&d=wavatar&r=g","caption":"sddm0805"},"url":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?author=11"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10227,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10225\/revisions\/10227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}