Why Trump is singling out South Africa and accusing it of being anti-white and anti-American

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The Trump administration’s decision to expel the South African ambassador is its latest move against a country it has singled out for sanctions and accused of being anti-white and anti-American.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country” and said he was “a race-baiting politician” who hates America and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Rubio’s post didn't explain what was behind the decision but linked to a story by the conservative Breitbart news site. The story reported on a talk Rasool gave Friday on a webinar where he said the Make America Great Again movement could be seen as being a response to “a supremacist instinct.”

Trump had already issued an executive order last month cutting all funding to South Africa over some of its domestic and foreign policies. The order criticized the Black-led South African government on multiple fronts, saying it is pursuing anti-white policies at home and supporting “bad actors” in the world like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.

A white minority group in South Africa has been a central focus for Trump.

Trump falsely accused the South African government of a rights violation against white Afrikaner farmers by seizing their land through a new expropriation law. No land has been seized and the South African government has pushed back, saying U.S. criticism is driven by misinformation.

The Trump administration’s references to the Afrikaner people — who are descendants of Dutch and other European settlers — have also elevated previous claims made by Trump's South African-born advisor Elon Musk and some conservative U.S. commentators that the South African government is allowing attacks on white farmers in what amounts to a genocide.

That has been disputed by experts in South Africa, who say there is no evidence of whites being targeted, although farmers of all races are victims of violent home invasions in a country that suffers from a very high crime rate.

The issue of land in South Africa is highly emotive given that more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule, whites still own most of the good commercial farming land despite making up just 7% of the population. The South African government says the expropriation law aims to address those historic inequalities but is not “a confiscation tool” and will target unused land.

Trump has offered Afrikaner farmers refugee status in the U.S. and a fast track to citizenship, but groups representing them say they want to stay in South Africa.

Trump’s sanctioning of South Africa also cited the country’s case at the United Nations’ top court accusing U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

During arguments in that ongoing and highly controversial case, Israel accused South Africa of acting as a proxy for Hamas. Trump has repeated that, questioning South Africa’s motives and accusing it of an anti-American foreign policy that supports Hamas, Iran, China and Russia.

South Africa’s post-apartheid government has long been a supporter of the Palestinian cause, going back to the time of Nelson Mandela, its first Black president. It compares the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to the experiences of Black South Africans who were confined to certain areas during apartheid.

Rasool, the South African ambassador, comes from a Muslim community in South Africa that has been a center of support for Palestinians. The Breitbart writer whose story was cited by Rubio — senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak — was also born in South Africa and is Jewish. His story cast Rasool as a Hamas supporter.

Pollak has other connections to the U.S.-South Africa situation after recently meeting with a lobby group representing Afrikaners. South African media have reported that Pollak is a contender to be Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to South Africa.

The U.S. criticism of South Africa has extended to its presidency this year of the Group of 20, a bloc of major economies that aims to bring the developed and developing world together. Rubio skipped a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in South Africa last month and said he would boycott the G20 summit in South Africa in November.

He said he had a problem with South Africa's theme for its G20 presidency, which is “solidarity, equality and sustainability.” Rubio, in a post on X, dismissed that as “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and climate change” and said he would not waste taxpayer money on it.

The South African government has expressed surprise at Trump's sanctions and says it wants to fix its relationship with the U.S. “South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship,” said a statement from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday in response to Rasool's expulsion.

But U.S.-South Africa ties were strained even before Trump. The Biden administration accused South Africa of supporting Russia in the war in Ukraine while claiming a neutral stance. Like with the Palestinians, South Africa has historic ties to Russia, which supported the fight against apartheid.

While Ramaphosa has repeatedly said he wants to engage in talks with the Trump administration, his African National Congress party has at times been defiant. The ANC recently invited the Iranian ambassador to its headquarters in Johannesburg and said it wouldn't hide its friends.

President Donald Trump gestures from the stairs of Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, March 14, 2025, (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with reporters following the G7 foreign ministers meeting in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, on Friday, March 14, 2025. (Saul Loeb, Pool Photo via AP)

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, right, welcomes Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission President, centre, and Antonio Costa, European Union Council President, left, ahead of the eighth EU-South Africa summit in Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

FILE - South Africa's ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool speaks at the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

President Donald Trump is escorted by Col. Paul Pawluk, Vice Commander of the 89th Airlift Wing, right, as he walks from Marine One before boarding Air Force One, Friday, March 14, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

HAVANA (AP) — Millions of people in Cuba remained without power Saturday after a failure of the nation’s electric grid left the island in the dark the previous night.

The massive blackout is the fourth in the last six months as a severe economic crisis plagues the Caribbean country. The Ministry of Energy and Mines, in a statement on social media, attributed the latest outage to a failure at a substation in the suburbs of Havana, the capital.

Internet and telephone service were intermittent about Saturday evening after power went out around 8 p.m. local time Friday.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on his X account that authorities are “working intensely to restore stability” to the power system.

Lázaro Guerra, director of electricity at the ministry, said on national television that power was already being generated to support vital services such as hospitals.

A statement from the Cuban Electricity Union released Saturday said the strategy was to create “microsystems” that will connect to each other to gradually restore electricity across the country. Several of these were already operating in the provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago, Las Tunas and Pinar del Río.

In Sancti Spíritus, the provincial energy company reported on its Telegram channel that more than 200,000 customers in that area had electricity thanks to these microsystems.

Many Cuban families use electric equipment to prepare their meals. The outage could cause food to thaw in refrigerators and possibly spoil due to the island’s tropical climate.

“When I was about to start cooking and making some spaghetti, the power went out. “And now what?” Cecilia Duquense, a 79-year-old housewife who lives in the working-class neighborhood of Central Havana, said Saturday.

In Havana, people were shopping for food Saturday. Businesses were open, although some were operating using batteries or small home generators.

“We are very worried that the food will go bad” in the refrigerator if the blackout lasts much longer, said Frank García, a 26-year-old marker worker in Havana.

Gas stations were also open, but the tunnel that runs under Havana Bay and connects the city to the outskirts was dark.

Cuba suffered similar blackouts in October, November and December. The latest was the first of 2025 but in mid-February authorities suspended classes and work activities for two days due to a shortage of electricity generation that exceeded 50% in the country.

Experts have said the electricity disruptions are a result of fuel shortages at power plants and aging infrastructure. Most plants have been in operation for more than 30 years.

The outages come as Cubans are experiencing a severe economic crisis that analysts have blamed on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a program of domestic measures that triggered inflation and, above all, the tightening of sanctions by the United States.

Residents wait outside on a street during a general blackout in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Residents look at their cell phones on the street during a general blackout in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A resident walks on a street during a general blackout in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Residents walk on a street during a general blackout in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)