Morale has never been lower for America’s fleet of foreign ambassadors, thanks to President Donald Trump.
Data from a new report by the American Foreign Service Association indicates that a shocking 98 percent of U.S. diplomats feel workplace morale has plummeted since Trump took office in January.
Of the over 2,100 ambassadors surveyed by the AFSA, 86 percent said that actions by the second Trump administration have impacted their ability to fulfill their diplomatic responsibilities worldwide, and nearly a third are considering leaving their post.
“The U.S. Foreign Service is being systematically undermined by its own leadership,” AFSA president John Dinkelman said in the report.
“From the time they swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, members of the U.S. Foreign Service are trained to provide honest, unfiltered input to leadership to allow for the best decisions to be made,” he continued. “Unfortunately, in the present environment, speaking truth to power is being turned into an occupational hazard.”
Dinkelman added that “a quarter of the workforce has departed” in less than a year, noting “recalcitrant leadership” as a significant contributing factor.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.
The U.S. Foreign Service has faced a plethora of changes since the second Trump administration barreled into office. Reduced budgets, sweeping layoffs, and dismissal of key projects and initiatives since January have weakened the pillar of U.S. foreign relations.
Among the third of diplomats considering leaving their service, the majority cited the loss of workplace protections or reduced resources as reasons for their departure. Fifty-four percent of those respondents said “negative political influence at work” was a deciding factor.
“[The] message is loud and clear that anything less than slavish devotion to policies that harm the American people will be met with termination, if not legal persecution and online harassment,” wrote an anonymous Foreign Service member surveyed for the report.
Trump, 79, has boasted about his foreign policy success in supposedly ending “eight wars” since entering his second term.
He has cited his efforts to broker peace abroad as reasoning for earning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize—a recognition that instead went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
The so-called “Peace President” has yet to put an end to the Russia-Ukraine War—a conflict he once said he would put to rest on “Day One” of his presidency.
Peace talks with the Kremlin on Tuesday, led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were apparently fruitful, despite the president’s lack of knowledge on the details.
“I don’t know what the Kremlin is doing,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “I can tell you that they had a reasonably good meeting with President Putin. We’re going to find out. It’s a war that should have never been started.”
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