The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has proposed a sweeping reorganisation of the US state department as part of what he called an effort to reform it amid criticism from the Trump White House over the execution of US diplomacy.
If approved, the reorganisation would cut more than 700 positions and eliminate 132 of 734 offices, according to state department officials. But those officials also stressed that the plan, which was suddenly announced on Tuesday, remained a proposal and would not lead to immediate layoffs or cuts.
Other reports on Tuesday leaked through the conservative news outlet the Free Press said that Rubio was planning to request an across-the-board 15% reduction in personnel. That would mark the largest cut in the diplomatic corps in decades, although it is less drastic than draft proposals that had been circulated and a report from the White House’s office of management and budget that suggested a 50% cut in the department’s budget.
“The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests,” Rubio said in a statement. “That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the Department in to the 21st Century.”
The reorganisation may be followed by other announcements on staffing and cuts, a department official said, that would close a number of overseas missions, reduce staff and minimise offices dedicated to promoting liberal values in a stated goal to subsume them into regional bureaus.
“Our organisational chart has become bloated … with the priorities of past administrations,” said a senior state department official. “This is an attempt to go back to the traditional roots of the state department … to the primacy of the regional bureaus and of our foreign missions.
“The state department will lose relevance if it cannot turn things around in an expeditious manner,” the official said.
In his remarks, Rubio wrote that he was targeting departments that were involved in the global promotion of democracy and human rights, writing that the expansive “domain … provided a fertile environment for activists to redefine ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’ and to pursue their projects at the taxpayer expense.
“The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against ‘anti-woke’ leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes,” Rubio wrote. “The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to international organizations and NGOs that facilitated mass migration around the world, including the invasion on our southern border.”
Yet a number of state department staffers said the cuts were less severe than expected and that key information had not yet been released on how many jobs may be cut. “There is no information on [personnel] cuts”, which is “what most people are waiting for”, said one state department employee.
One draft executive order shared with the Guardian and previously reported on by the New York Times would have eliminated almost all of its Africa operations and shut down embassies and consulates across the continent.
Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said that she would “scrutinise” the reorganisation and that she would “hold Rubio to his pledge” to appear before the committee and engage with Congress on the future of the state department.
“Any changes to the state department and USAID must be carefully weighed with the real costs to American security and leadership,” she said. “When America retreats – as it has under President Trump – China and Russia fill the void. A strong and mission-ready state department advances American national security interests, opens up new markets for American workers and companies and promotes global peace and stability.”
Tammy Bruce, the department spokesperson, denied on Tuesday that the billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” was in charge of the reorganisation, but said that Doge’s approach had informed the proposal.
“We know the American people love the result of Doge,” she said, when asked whether Musk’s department was directly involved. “Doge was not in charge of this, but this is the result of what we’ve learned, and the fact that we appreciate the results, and we want more of those results.”
