Trump Team Reshapes State Department, Slashes Key Roles

The top diplomat under President Donald Trump named Marco Rubio declared an organizational overhaul for the US State Department that involved cutting personnel numbers and diminishing human rights departments. According to Rubio the department contains too many staff members and its structure opposes the administration's beliefs so he introduced it as a major system change. The department’s final plan includes fewer radical changes than what appeared in previous drafts that would have removed nearly all daily diplomatic activities from Africa.

"The Department is bloated, bureaucratic and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great-power competition," Rubio said in a statement, referring to US rivalry with China. The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America's core national interests. One key change will be eliminating a division in charge of civilian security, democracy and human rights”. Rubio said in a statement, referring to US rivalry with China.

The creation of the Office of Coordination for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs combines various state department functions to take over responsibilities from the shrunken US Agency for International Development. This new department will supervise an organization that directs democracy and human rights together with religious freedom policy while assuming responsibility for the current office which maintained labor rights advocacy. A restructuring of religious freedom activities will unify the independent envoy with other components of the new organization. Marco Rubio expressed criticism in an editorial because he disapproved of how the bureau previously managed its work including banning Israeli arms sales because of human rights violations. The plan terminates the special climate change envoy position created under President Biden together with two offices which played vital roles in preventing atrocities and recording civilian mistreatment in Ukraine.