Foggy Bottom 2.0: State Department Gets a Face Lift

Foggy Bottom is bracing for major changes. Inside-the-beltway policy wonks have been chattering for days about a Trump administration draft plan to reorganize the State Department. Ossified intellects in the current organization are aghast that anyone would consider changing how things are done. It's unthinkable. Well, not so much, since agents of change started to look closely at how inefficient and hostile many of the agency’s employees truly are to America's interests.

Whose Side Is the State Department On?

Many people who have America’s best interests at heart have been wondering for whose team the State Department plays. Recent revelations described massive amounts of US taxpayer dollars going to countries and causes irrelevant and even antithetical to American values. In a Department of State public statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear where the Trump administration stands and how Foggy Bottom 2.0 will be organized to further US interests in the foreign policy and diplomatic outreach arena.

In an April 22 press statement, "Building an America First State Department," Rubio foreshadowed a more detailed explanation of how undersecretaries, principal staff assistants, and staff structure would be reorganized. The release explained, "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."

In an official State Department explanation of the restructuring of the foreign policy bureaucracy, Rubio observed:

"Today America confronts a new era of great power competition and the rise of a multipolar order with a State Department that stifles creativity, lacks accountability, and occasionally veers into outright hostility to American interests … Unless we confront the underlying bureaucratic culture that prevents the State Department from carrying out an effective foreign policy while allowing offices like GEC [Global Engagement Center] to flourish in the shadows, nothing will change."

The secretary singled out the GEC as emblematic of bureaucratic malfeasance and indicative of how a staff organization can go rogue, pushing its maligned interests while excluding the concerns of the American people. As the chief Cabinet-level advocate for US engagement with other countries said about the GEC: "The office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of the President of the United States, who its director in 2019 accused of employing 'the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians.’” This unfettered bureaucratic behavior speaks to a level of hubris that cannot and will not be tolerated.

Before the official statement was published, there was considerable speculation about organizational realignment. Foggy Bottom watchers expected the changes would be sweeping and profound. The kerfuffle over what to do with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was just a harbinger of things to come. USAID was among the first of the "independent" agencies identified as an example of a deplorable waste of US tax dollars. "Cutting wasteful spending has been a main priority for Trump and DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency], and early on, USAID was among the first agencies targeted. However, the process of doing so has apparently been contentious," according to the Daily Caller. The USAID functions that have merit and support US foreign policy interests, particularly humanitarian assistance, will reportedly be brought into the State Department and under the oversight of the regional offices.

The central element of the reorganization is to address what Rubio calls a "bloated" department. According to Reuters, "The plan, which Congress has been notified about, would eliminate 132 of the department's 734 bureaus and offices," and "[u]ndersecretaries will submit plans to reduce staff by 15%." The reduction in the organization will include eliminating 700 positions in DC, with a potential for a 22% reduction in the State Department's approximately 80,000 employees worldwide.

Reorganization Will Eliminate Whole Bureaus

Among the bureaus and undersecretary positions on the chopping block are the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights and, no surprise, the Office of Global Women's Issues and the Diversity and Inclusion Office. Additionally, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor will be absorbed by the Office of the Coordinator for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs and will no longer be an undersecretary-level office. The agency had become nothing more than a "platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against 'anti-woke' leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies," Rubio's statement asserted.

Cleaning up the State Department has been an objective for decades of presidential administrations from both parties. Donald Trump is the first to turn aspirations for good government and pro-America initiatives into actions. The president promised to drain Washington's swamp. Secretary Rubio is starting by emptying the deep pit of wasted tax dollars and anti-American rogue bureaucrats in Foggy Bottom.

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