The US diplomatic apparatus has long been the target of conservatives, who defend a more focused on the defense of the country’s interests and less for the promotion of human rights or cooperation.
US Diplomacy Chief Marco Rubio announced a reorganization of the State Department on Tuesday to suppress or give new designations to human rights and war crimes in Ukraine, and implying staff cuts.
“In its current form, the department is overdone, bureaucratic and unable to fulfill its essential mission of diplomacy in this new age of competition between great powers,” Rubio said, responsible for Donald Trump’s administration diplomacy.
“We are facing tremendous challenges around the world. To comply with President Trump’s ‘First’ foreign policy, we have to make the State Department big again,” says the note today released by Rubio’s office.
The US diplomatic apparatus has long been the target of conservatives, who defend a more focused on the defense of the country’s interests and less for the promotion of human rights or cooperation.
The reorganization announced this Tuesday includes the abolition of division to “Safety of civilians, democracy and human rights”, which will be replaced by another, responsible for “Coordination of foreign aid and humanitarian affairs”.
It should absorb what is left of USAID, The development agency that for years managed a budget that represented almost half of world humanitarian aid, now dramatically cut by the Trump administration.
The designation of the Global Labor Rights Protection Office was changed to defend the “religious freedom”.
The proposed reorganization It also eliminates a unit that documenting war crimes in Ukraniaas well as another one that worked to prevent abuse.
According to Rubio, the new approach “It will give the department powers from the base, from the offices to the embassies” e “The specific functions of each region will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be eliminated and non -statutory programs that are not aligned with America’s fundamental interests will no longer exist.”
“Under the leadership of President Trump, we have a chief commander committed to putting America and Americans first. As his secretary of state, I am confident that a renovated state department will correspond to the moment and help make our country big once again,” he said.
Marco Rubio also indicated in X that the Number of offices in the State Department would be reduced from 734 to 602 and that the deputies of the Secretary of State would have to propose plans, within one month, to reduce the number of employees by which they are responsible for 15%.
A high state department official told the US press that the reduction of jobs would not necessarily imply discharge and that the plan presented this Tuesday would be discussed in Congress and with employees in the coming monthsin order to finish the reorganization.
The plan presented It is less drastic than other versions initially foreseen.
Last week, several US media reported potential drastic cuts in the state department budget, which would result at the end of the financing of international organizations such as UN and NATO.
The plan was initially revealed by the New York Times and later denied by the head of US diplomacy.
“This is fake information,” he wrote on social network X, insisting that the newspaper had been “victim of another scam.”
A presidential decree project to which some media had access on the last weekend that the United States considerably reduce its diplomatic presence in Africa, as part of a “Total structural reorganization” of the State Department.
