State Department undergoes deep cuts in sweeping overhaul : NPR

The American State Department in Washington, DC

Beata Zawrzel / Nurphoto via Getty Images

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Beata Zawrzel / Nurphoto via Getty Images

The State Department reduces its staff based in Washington by approximately 15% in what managers have called the agency’s largest revision for decades. Some employees have already retired early, while hundreds of others received dismissal notices on Friday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio directs the overhaul, eliminating 132 offices which he described as part of an “inflated bureaucracy”. Its staff rewritten the key staff rules to allow the ministry to dismiss external service and public service officials in roles now deleted.

Rubio defended movement as essential to accelerate internal processes, citing the layers of bureaucracy that slow down decision -making. “There were 40 boxes on this piece of paper,” he told senators in May. “It means that 40 people had to check” yes “before it even takes me away. It’s ridiculous. And if one of these boxes has not been checked, the note has not moved. It cannot continue.”

Jeanne Shaheen and other Democrats of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a statement criticizing the cuts, saying: “If this administration seriously concerns” America first “, she must invest in our diplomatic corps and our national security experts – and not eroding the institutions that protect our interests, promote American values ​​and ensure the security of the Americans abroad,” they wrote.

The former diplomats also sound the alarm. The American Academy of Diplomacy, who represents the former ambassadors, who plead for American diplomacy, accused Rubio of having eliminated the institutional knowledge of the department and described the decision as “the act of vandalism”.

“It is not only a question of cutting the fat,” said Thomas Shannon, a former state subsecretary in the previous Trump administration. “We remove a large part of our public service and external service employees and restructuring that reflects a decreased global program.”

Shannon warns that the upheaval could have long -term consequences – especially since the United States reduces human rights and the promotion of democracy. He also underlined the closure of the USAID and the loss of experts with critical and cultural language skills like blows to influence us abroad.

“We are going to end up cutting a lot of truly talented people,” he said. “They will be like players in a game of musical chairs – suddenly find themselves without a seat.”

Although the impact is not felt immediately, Shannon said that this decision could leave the United States to lagging up on rivals like China in the world arena.