Rubio Unveils ‘America First State Department’ Reorganization Plan
Don’t freak out. It seems the department will consolidate these offices into existing ones or simply restructure them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced changes to the department to fit with President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.
Also, no, the plan does not include closing embassies and consulates.
In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition. Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth and costs have soared. But far from seeing a return on investment, taxpayers have seen less effective and efficient diplomacy. The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.
That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the Department into the 21st Century. This approach will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies. Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist.
The Free Press was the first publication to publish the details.
The department wants to reduce the number of offices from 734 to 602.
The department’s under secretaries have 15 days to show Rubio their plans “to reduce their U.S. personnel in individual departments by 15 percent.”
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we have a commander in chief committed to putting America and Americans first,” added Rubio. “As his Secretary of State, I am confident a reformed State Department will meet the moment and help make our country great once again.”
Once again, I cannot stress that we should take anything from “sources” from the Trump administration because The New York Times reported that the department would close almost every African operation.
(You know, like the supposed Yemen attack Signal chats Hegseth had with his wife and others.)
None of the changes include those changes in the plans, according to The Free Press:
According to the planning documents, the State Department will eliminate 132 of its offices along with 700 positions within them. These offices are wings of the agency in Washington, D.C., that focus on a variety of foreign policy issues and are viewed by the Trump administration as no longer necessary.
The 700 positions are for civil service and foreign service employees, rather than political appointees. The elimination of the roles is in addition to the State Department’s ask for under secretaries to reduce their personnel by 15 percent.
The State Department is also transferring 137 offices to other parts of the agency to consolidate programs.
The Offices
I’m seeing people on X claiming the State Department plans on closing offices committed to war crimes and human trafficking.
But from what I’m reading, the department will consolidate these offices into existing ones, restructure them, or rename them.
For example, we have the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights:
One notable part of the restructuring will involve an office called the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, also known as the agency’s “J programs.” It “leads global diplomatic efforts to advance universal human rights, democratic renewal, and human-centered security,” according to its website.
The J office, the documents show, is being overhauled and renamed as the Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance and Human Rights. There, officials plan to abolish its Office of Global Criminal Justice, which was formed in 1997 to advise on U.S. policy related to genocide, war crimes, and other grave human rights violations.
In the past, the Office of Global Criminal Justice has worked with the Department of Justice on investigating atrocities committed in Syria, and has aided Balkan countries in setting up war crime tribunals, according to a former State Department official. This March, the office met with a group of Syrians to discuss human rights issues.
Some functions of that criminal justice office will be absorbed by the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, according to the documents.
The Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, or CSO, might face elimination.
The department formed the CSO in 2011 “help anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflicts that may threaten U.S. national security.”
But one official told The Free Press, “Nobody is really sure what they do.”
“When I ask them, they seem to not really be sure what they’re supposed to be doing,” added the official. “It’s an office that was created several years ago to look at Afghanistan [issues] and to avoid conflict areas. But we already have other offices within the department that do that.”
The Trump administration also focused on the Bureau of Counterterrorism’s “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE).
It sounds like an important office. The administration claims “that the CVE programs at that bureau duplicate others in the agency, including programs at a bureau focused on international narcotics.”
People can stop freaking out about the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID):
The second senior State Department official told The Free Press that foreign assistance functions formerly run by USAID will now be taken on by regional State Department bureaus or folded into other existing offices. For example, USAID’s disaster assistance functions will be moved to the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and its health programs to the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, the official said.
“On July 1, USAID ceases to exist,” that official added. The State Department has said it will complete its USAID reorganization by that date, which is expected to draw legal challenges since Congress established USAID as an independent agency.
So, again, you can expect the left to freak out and the media to twist everything while burying the lede: The department is consolidating offices and deleting offices that duplicate other offices.
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Comments
Color me surprised that State has masses of conflicting and redundant departments and programs.
Its what unchecked bureaucracies do; grow themselves like cancers. Adults realize this.
It’s worse than that, and thus more necessary to slim down the system. When you have multiple offices responsible for something, you can have one office thinking it’s doing a certain policy, but another office is tasked with running a more effective counteracting policy, so the effect is the reverse.
There was surely an Israel friendly face to most things. But behind the scenes it was more like jihadists. They were very sneaky.
Probably still too big. Tell me why we are helping the balkans setup tribunals and invetigating atrocities in syria. Yeah that’s all bad but why does the us tax payer have to foot the bill? Ditto for human rights advancement. Worthwhile in name but in practice there is little we can do before getting deeply involved. Still too many departments oriented toward intervention in other countries.
While you are at it, make the SD a pro America dept.
Good first steps. ID the redundancies, consolidate their functions. ID the wasted resources and eliminate these. The reorganization won’t be done in a single step or round of cutting. More dead wood, both individual personnel and programs, will emerge as the layers above are trimmed and pulled away.
the embassies etc are also bullll
they dont help out american citizens
they arent really equipped militarily to protect
they are party spots being hosted by the taxpayers who are not allowed in
Untrue. Some of the longest workdays in my life (other than on the farm growing up) were when I was posted at several of our embassies.
One of our core mission functions is providing American Citizen Services. How many American citizens have you gotten out of a rotten African prison, or arranged for an emergency passport to get someone home? Or spent an afternoon in a 100 degree police headquarters in the Sahel arguing in 3 languages with the secret police trying to keep an American contractor from being illegally hauled to prison. I could go on.
Of course the embassies aren’t “equipped militarily to protect” – they aren’t military bases .
And the reason private citizens aren’t allowed in (unescorted) is because we actually do have bonafide classified documents there, and those private citizens don’t have vetted security clearances.
I’ve read a story about Reagan and his state department. May or may not be a true story – but it makes a point. Supposedly he’d occassionally be meeting with the ambassador to X and ask them if they could point out the country they were working for on a spinning globe in the office. They’d inevitably point to the country they were posted to. He’d shake his head no and point to the USA instead.
Rubio is turning out to be a pleasant surprise in his role.
Still don’t trust him on immigration and amnesty and wouldn’t vote for him in a presidential primary – not my first choice.
But making progress on draining the swamp while being a vocal defender of Trump policy in the face of hostile media.
Good so far.
Why such timid cuts?
“On July 1, USAID ceases to exist,” that official added. The State Department has said it will complete its USAID reorganization by that date, which is expected to draw legal challenges since Congress established USAID as an independent agency.
Not true. USAID was established by EO. Congress merely approved of its establishment by funding it. Congress can likewise indicate its disapproval of a POTUS-created office or agency by refusing to fund it.
As a former embassy based US diplomat and long time Beltway worker bee, this change is a long long overdue. The only change I would suggest to the SECSTATE is that 100% of the personnel reduction need to come from the State Department Civil Servant workforce and none from the Foreign Service Officers. I’d actually lobby for a 10% increase in the FSO ranks, if we could eliminate evey GS-14 and above civil servant in Foggy Bottom.