The administration of the US President Donald Trump is proposing a major overhaul of the US State Department that would eliminate more than 100 offices including some working on war crimes and rights advocacy to ensure that the agency is in line with President Donald Trump's “America First” priorities.
According to an internal State Department memo, the plan, which Congress has been notified about, would eliminate 132 of the department's 734 bureaus and offices.
The memo added that Undersecretaries will submit plans to reduce staff by 15%.
At the time of filing this report, it was not clear how many people would be laid off as a result of the revamp, but a report in online publication the Free Press, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X, said an additional 700 positions would be eliminated in the shuttered offices.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote to staff in an internal email that an internal working group will lead implementation of the reorganization and develop detailed plans for each part of the department by July 1.
The shake-up comes as part of an unprecedented push by Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk to shrink the federal government, saying US taxpayer money is misspent.
DAILY POST reports that the effort has led to the firing of thousands of government employees.
“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,” Rubio said in a statement.
Both Rubio and officials said the bloated structure of the State Department made it impossible to quickly and efficiently make decisions, stating that the new plan would attempt to empower regional bureaus to increase functionality and remove offices and programmes not aligned with America’s core national interests.
Recall that Trump issued a separate executive order in February directing Rubio to revamp the US Foreign Service and how the State Department functions to ensure that the US diplomatic corps faithfully implements his agenda.
