The U.S. State Department announced a dramatic shakeup of its organizational structure, one which a senior department official said will relieve America’s diplomatic efforts of layers of bureaucratic muck built up over decades which is stifling its ability to respond to pressing challenges.
“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,” Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, said on Tuesday.
“That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the department into the 21st century,” Rubio stated.
The proposal, which was sent to Congress earlier today, calls for closing 132 agency offices, a 17% cut, including several that advance human rights, democracy and counter-extremism efforts.
The senior official showed reporters the State Department’s organizational charts spanning the last few decades and pointed to a bloated structure, in which each administration has added its own priorities, which succeeding administrations have struggled to unwind.
“It is quite clear that our organizational chart over the years has become bloated and constipated with the priorities of past administrations,” the official told reporters. “Over the years, we have seen an accretion of just different departments, bureaus, offices within this building that, frankly, has had a deleterious effect on the conduct of American policy, foreign policy, and, in particular, the relevance of this department.”
The State Department has thus far declined to identify specific offices that it intends to shutter or fold. The official said that the administration wants to empower regional secretaries and local embassies and consulates instead of having power run through uncoordinated agencies and offices.
“This is an attempt to go back to the traditional roots of the State Department, which are the primacy of the regional bureaus and of our foreign missions,” the official said.
The official noted that the department is different from other federal departments, whose main footprints are in the Washington area.
“What makes us different is that we have a global footprint, so that we can actually assess on-the-ground reporting from people around the world, and people who can go in and talk to ministers or leaders of business and industry around the world,” the official said. “Those people should be empowered to actually affect or direct U.S. policy towards particular countries and regions, as opposed to the State Department making policy here in Washington.”
The department also proposes cutting 700 civil and foreign service positions, but the official said on Tuesday that no final decision was made yet. Eliminating each position doesn’t necessarily mean firing the employee, the official told reporters.
Regional under-secretaries have been given 30 days to develop a plan to implement the cuts, per the official.
The official was asked about concerns that closing offices that work on human rights, religious tolerance and cultural exchange could impact U.S. standing or soft power in the Arab world negatively. The official downplayed those concerns and said that even with offices being shuttered, the department wasn’t ignoring those issues.
“You can’t just say that one issue is our only issue in our relationship with country X, because any relationship between countries involves a host of issues,” the official told reporters.
“Our current system is a strange system, where some issues are bundled together over here, and then you have individual issues floating around out here,” the official said. “We’re saying these are going to be part of the comprehensive relationship between our country and other countries and other regions.”
Earlier reporting on the reorg, which the State Department declined to confirm, indicated that the offices of the special envoy for Iran would be eliminated and their functions transferred to the Iran desk within a new Mid-East Corps. The latter, reportedly, would also house the Office of Israeli-Palestinian Affairs.
The office of the special envoy to monitor and combat anitsemitism would shift to a global Jewish affairs coordinator, also under the proposed Mid-East Corps, per unconfirmed reports.
JNS asked the senior official if the Trump administration had decided that the special envoy for Iran position was better handled in the White House and its National Security Council.
“The president has named somewhere around 10 or so special envoys,” the official told JNS. “This does not change that.”
The official acknowledged that foreign-policy staff who operate outside the State Department’s auspices have become more agile in their decision-making processes.
“It takes us weeks to clear a simple op-ed by an ambassador. That means in our fast-moving modern world, the State Department can be left behind,” the official said.
“The National Security Council winds up playing a more dynamic role, because it is immediately actually implementing the president’s priorities,” the official said. “At the State Department, we are not structured right now under the existing strategy to actually be able to achieve results quickly and effectively.”
The responsibilities of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration has said isn’t sufficiently aligned with its priorities, will transfer mostly to country levels, where aid delivery can be coordinated better between local embassies and consulates and host governments, per the senior official.
The State Department did not confirm reporting that the Trump administration aims to reduce the department’s budget by 50%.