A draft White House executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.
The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.
The purpose of the executive order, which could be signed by President Trump this week, is to impose “a disciplined reorganization” of the State Department and “streamline mission delivery” while cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” according to a copy of the 16-page draft order obtained by The New York Times. The department is supposed to make the changes by Oct. 1.
The signing of the executive order would be accompanied by efforts to lay off both career diplomats, known as foreign service officers, and civil service employees, who usually work in the department’s headquarters in Washington, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The department would begin putting large numbers of workers on paid leave and sending out notices of termination, they said.
The draft executive order calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, and it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”
The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”
Elements of the executive order could still change before Mr. Trump signs it. Neither the State Department nor the White House National Security Council had immediate comment on the order early Sunday.
The proposed reorganization would get rid of regional bureaus that help make and enact policy in large parts of the globe.
Instead, the draft says, those functions would fall under four “corps”: Eurasia Corps, consisting of Europe, Russia and Central Asia; Mid-East Corps, consisting of Arab nations, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan; Latin America Corps, consisting of Central America, South America and the Caribbean; and Indo-Pacific Corps, consisting of East Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.
One of the most drastic proposed changes would be eliminating the bureau of African affairs, which oversees policy in sub-Saharan Africa. It would be replaced by a much smaller special envoy office for African affairs that would report to the White House National Security Council. The office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations.”
The draft also said all “nonessential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa would be closed by Oct. 1. Diplomats would be sent to Africa on “targeted, mission-driven deployments,” the document said.
Canada operations would be put into a new North American affairs office under the Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s authority, and it would be run by a “significantly reduced team,” the draft said. The department would also severely shrink the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.
The department would eliminate a bureau overseeing democracy and human rights issues; one that handles refugees and migration; and another that works with international organizations. The under secretary position overseeing the first two bureaus would be cut. So would the office of the under secretary of public diplomacy and public affairs.
The department would also get rid of the position of the special envoy for climate.
The department would establish a new senior position, the under secretary for transnational threat elimination, to oversee counternarcotics policy and other issues, the draft memo said.
The Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance would absorb the remnants of the United States Agency for International Development, which has been gutted over the last two months by Mr. Rubio and other members of the Trump administration.
As for personnel, the memo said, the department needs to move from its “current outdated and disorganized generalist global rotation model to a smarter, strategic, regionally specialized career service framework to maximize expertise.”
That means people trying to get into the Foreign Service would choose during the application process which regional corps they want to work in.
The department would offer buyouts to foreign service and civil service officers until Sept. 30, the draft said.
The draft order also calls for narrowing Fulbright scholarships so that they are given only to students doing master’s-level studies in national security matters.
And it says the department will end its contract with Howard University, a historically Black institution, to recruit candidates for the Rangel and Pickering fellowships, which are to be terminated. The goal of those fellowships has been to help students from underrepresented groups get a chance at entering the Foreign Service soon after graduation.
The draft executive order is one of several internal documents that have circulated in the administration in recent days laying out proposed changes to the State Department. Another memo outlines a proposed cut of nearly 50 percent to the agency’s budget in the next fiscal year. Yet another internal memo proposes cutting 10 embassies and 17 consulates.
Greg Jaffe contributed reporting.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department.
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