The Trump administration is considering plans to close 10 embassies and 17 consulates and reduce or consolidate the staff of several other foreign missions, according to an internal State Department memo viewed by The New York Times.
The closures and other reductions outlined in the document, which is undated, would pare back the American presence on nearly every continent. They represent an expansion of plans the Trump administration was working on earlier this year for closing a dozen foreign missions and laying off local staff who work in those locations.
The cuts are in keeping with President Trump’s plans to reduce federal spending across the government, as well as a proposal that State Department leaders have been considering to cut nearly 50 percent of the department’s spending.
But the new proposed reductions have raised fresh concerns that the United States will be ceding vital diplomatic space to China, including in areas of the world where Washington has a greater presence than Beijing, compromising American national security, including intelligence gathering.
Six of the embassies that the memo proposed for closure are in Africa: Central African Republic, Eritrea, Gambia, Lesotho, the Republic of Congo and South Sudan. The memo recommends transferring their functions to embassies in nearby countries.
The memo also recommends closing two small embassies in Europe — in Luxembourg and Malta — as well as the diplomatic missions in Grenada and the Maldives, and moving their portfolios to nearby countries, too.
Most of the consulates that are recommended for closure are in Europe, and they include several tourist destinations popular with Americans.
Five of the consulates are in France — in Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseilles, Rennes and Strasbourg. Two are in Germany — in Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Another two, Mostar and Banja Luka, are in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The memo also suggests closing consulates in Thessaloniki, Greece; Florence, Italy; Ponta Delgada, Portugal; and Edinburgh. Outside of Europe, the memo recommends closing an additional four consulates, in Douala, Cameroon; Medan, Indonesia; Durban, South Africa; and Busan, South Korea.
The memo also suggests either significantly downsizing or eliminating the U.S. embassy presence in Mogadishu, Somalia, and closing the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center in Iraq, while reducing costs at the diplomatic posts in Baghdad and Erbil, Iraq. It also suggests consolidating consular support in countries with multiple consulates — such as Japan and Canada — in a single location.
If enacted, the proposed cuts would mean that the United States would have less of a diplomatic presence than China in Europe, where American outposts currently outnumber Chinese ones, according to data compiled by the Lowy Institute, a foreign policy think tank in Sydney. It would also mean that the United States would fall further behind China’s presence in Africa and East Asia, where Chinese missions currently outnumber American ones.
Karoun Demirjian is a breaking news reporter for the The Times.
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