One year on Ebrahim Rasool opens up about Trump, a world that proved him right

A year after being expelled from the United States, former ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool says the warnings he gave that sparked the US-SA diplomatic fallout have largely come to fruition.

Rasool says being declared persona non grata and given 72 hours to leave was a signal of things to come under the Trump administration and a forebearer of how dissenting views would be handled.

At the time, some labelled Rasool's comments as being 'undiplomatic'.

ALSO READ: Presidency to focus on ‘resetting’ relationship with US after Rasool expulsion

“I don't think that I had been undiplomatic. In the last year, we have seen a variety of undiplomatic statements being made by various people, and mine don't compare."

Rasool was forced to leave the US after making comments criticising US President Donald Trump and claiming he was leading a white supremacist movement.

At the time, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio labelled Rasool a 'race-baiting politician who hates America'.

Rasool's expulsion marked a new low for the already deteriorating US-South Africa relations.

A year later, he says he's 'disappointed' that much of what he predicted came true.

He points to a rise in executive orders, foreign aid cuts and trade tariffs as evidence that what he foresaw has come to pass.

"We have seen devastation from the aid cuts of the Trump administration, we have seen the trade war that even his own courts have had to turn around... that office has plunged the world into chaos.

"To a South African who can smell supremacism before you can see it because we've just lived it so long... the surprising element was the sheer brazenness, the sheer impunity... the sheer dishonesty, the daily lies."

ALSO READ: Rasool doesn't regret actions that led to expulsion, wants reset of SA-US relationship

To listen to Rasool in conversation with 702's Bongani Bingwa, use the audio player below: