Leo Brent Bozell III has presented his letters of credence to South Africa’s government, formally assuming his duties as Washington’s top diplomat in Pretoria.
Bozell is not a career diplomat. A conservative media critic and founder of the Media Research Centre, he was nominated by US President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in December 2025 by a 53-43 party-line vote.
His formal assumption of duties comes at a particularly fraught moment. Relations between Pretoria and Washington have deteriorated sharply, with Trump cutting all US aid to South Africa, imposing steep tariffs on its exports and publicly accusing the country of persecuting its white minority. These claims by the Trump administration have been refuted by official government statistics on crime in South Africa.
South Africa has not had an ambassador in Washington since early 2025, when envoy Ebrahim Rasool was expelled after publicly criticising Trump.
Bozell is also a fierce supporter of Israel, a position that puts him on a direct collision course with the SA government, which has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
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