The State Department has ordered that only United States flags be flown at embassies and consulates around the world, a departure from the Biden administration, under which pride and Black Lives Matter flags were sometimes displayed.
The White House drew attention to the change in a news release on Friday that listed some of the actions taken by President Trump during his first 100 hours in office.
The directive was reported earlier this week by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website, which said that prisoner-of-war and missing-in-action flags would still be allowed at embassies and other U.S. diplomatic outposts.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the policy on Friday.
The measure represented another step by Mr. Trump to dismantle the policies of his predecessor, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., during his first week in office. On Monday, he ordered his administration to gut policies put in place under Mr. Biden that were aimed at preventing sexual discrimination and seeking to protect transgender people. Mr. Trump also began rolling back targeted diversity programs that were intended to reverse decades of systemic inequities.
The flag policy has undergone changes with each administration. The display of rainbow flags had previously been routine at American diplomatic posts since 2011, when Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, said in a speech that “gay rights are human rights.”
In 2019, under the previous Trump administration, the State Department instructed missions that the rainbow flag may not be displayed on a “public-facing flagpole.” (Some embassies, such as those in South Korea and Israel, still put up pride flags or banners in public view, but not on poles.)
In 2021, the policy swung back again, when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken authorized U.S. missions to fly the rainbow flag on the same pole as the American flag during pride month in June.
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