JOHANNESBURG, March 17, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Pretoria considers improving its relationship with the United States a "priority", President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday, after Washington expelled South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.

Rising tensions between the two countries boiled over on Friday, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that Rasool was no longer welcome in the United States, calling him "a race-baiting politician" who hates US President Donald Trump.

"Improving our relationship with the United States of America is a priority for us," Ramaphosa told journalists outside a seminar, adding the United States is "our second largest trading partner after China".

Rubio declared the South African ambassador "persona non grata" after Rasool spoke at an online seminar on Friday, describing Trump's Make America Great Again movement as "a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States".

"We have noted the displeasure that has been expressed by the United States, particularly about the remarks he made," Ramaphosa said. Rasool will "come back and give me a full report", he added.

An anti-apartheid campaigner in his youth, Rasool has also expressed anger towards the Israeli government for its war in Gaza.

His expulsion is the latest development in mounting tensions between Washington and Pretoria over several policy disagreements and South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.