Trump is dismantling the State Department from within — and diplomats are fleeing
A Financial Times investigation reveals the depth of the turmoil in the US State Department: thousands have left, more than half of ambassadorial positions are vacant, and veteran diplomats warn that Trump is weakening the US foreign policy apparatus for years to come.
The US State Department, which for decades served as a powerful arm of United States influence around the world, is now under attack from its own president. According to a comprehensive investigation published in the Financial Times, a year and a half into Donald Trump's second term, the department is being sidelined from decision-making processes, losing its influence, and suffering from a massive exodus.
As of today, more than half of the ambassadorial positions around the world remain vacant (and in Africa the figure reaches about 80%), and the department's workforce has been cut by more than 3,000 employees, representing over 20% of the total staff.
President Trump abandoned a 60-year tradition and chose to push aside the professional diplomats who historically filled most embassies. Out of 101 ambassadorial appointments in his current term, only nine were professional diplomats. Their places are now being taken by businessmen, donors, and associates. The administration presents the turmoil as a necessary reform against an elitist bureaucracy disconnected from the "America First" policy.
A senior administration official clarified this to the Financial Times unequivocally:
"The role of the State Department is to represent the president's foreign policy, not to determine it."
Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio leads the hard line and spends most of his time at the White House rather than at the department's headquarters.
On the other hand, veteran diplomats warn against the loss of critical institutional knowledge and dangerous politicization. Former senior officials, including former CIA director Bill Burns, describe an atmosphere of fear and threats, where political loyalty and a willingness to fall in line with the conservative narrative have become tests for hiring and promotion. The price of pushing out experts is translated into failures on the ground: the collapse of the recent memorandum of understanding with Iran is attributed directly to the absence of American experts versed in the intricacies of Middle Eastern negotiations, which left the arena to skilled Iranian teams who misled the American representatives.
The result on the ground is quite grim. Allies and rivals alike have understood the new balance of power, and today they simply bypass the State Department and conduct contacts directly with Trump's inner circle. American diplomats, who once set the global tone, find themselves isolated and lacking influence. As one of the veteran diplomats summarized in the article: it seems that even if a future administration tries to restore the ruins, the damage caused to the prestige and functioning of American diplomacy may be a task that will take a whole generation.
