More than 1,350 US State Department employees have been fired in a major diplomatic shake-up ordered by President Donald Trump, in a move critics predict would curb the United States’ influence around the world.
Friday’s mass layoff, which affect 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran.
Diplomats and other staff clapped out departing colleagues in emotional scenes at the Washington headquarters of the department, which runs US foreign policy and the global network of embassies.
Some were crying as they walked out with boxes of belongings.
“It’s just heartbreaking to stand outside these doors right now and see people coming out in tears, because all they wanted to do was serve this country,” said US Senator Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who worked as a civilian adviser for the State Department in Afghanistan during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
The layoffs at the department came three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out its plan to gut entire government positions.
The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to lay off potentially tens of thousands of employees.
The 79-year-old Republican says he wants to dismantle what he calls the “deep state”. Since taking office in January, he has worked quickly to install fierce personal loyalists and to fire swaths of veteran government workers.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the foreign policy department is too cumbersome and requires thinning out of some 15 percent.
“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” Rubio told reporters on the sidelines of his ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”
The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) – the union representing State Department employees – condemned the “catastrophic blow to our national interests”.
“We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”
The State Department employed more than 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with about 17,700 in domestic roles.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID), long the primary vehicle to provide US humanitarian assistance around the world, has already been mostly dismantled.
According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were informed of their firings by email.
Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave, while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.
Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under former Democratic President Joe Biden, condemned what he called haphazard firings.
“For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”
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