PRETORIA - Thembisa Fakude, a senior research fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues gave his perspective on the expulsion of Ebrahim Rasool.
READ: Lamola: SA to comply with US expulsion of Ebrahim Rasool
US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, declared South Africa's US Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool persona non grata for his comments on Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement.
Professor John Stremlau said he represented a South Africa that sticks to the country's principles
Dr Oscar van Heerden says Rasool did not deserve to be kicked out of the US.
Fakude said, "It was coming. I'm saying this because of what happened over the past couple of days with Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit from Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen the president of the EU pledging 4.5 billion euros."
"South Africa has indicated that it is agitating towards Europe and I think that to an extent irritated Donald Trump. So when the webinar occurred with Ebrahim Rasool yesterday it came at a backdrop of that irritation and it was just a convenient pretext to expell Rasool in the manner that they did," he said.