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The State Department will reverse “decades of bloat and bureaucracy” by closing offices and consolidating functions under a reorganization program rolled out Tuesday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the changes on social media, describing the department in its current form as a sprawling bureaucracy that over the past 15 years has ballooned in size and cost. At the same time, he said, the department has become less effective at diplomacy “and more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interest.”
The announcement followed days of anonymous reports that the department would eliminate key offices and slash spending. Some of it turned out to be true, while other information was inaccurate.
Mr. Rubio didn’t provide details about cuts in staff and funding but said region-specific functions will be consolidated and offices that perform redundant tasks will be eliminated. He said he’ll close State Department programs not mandated by law and not aligned with America’s interests.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce described the announcement as a proposal that could change and said notice was provided to Congress.
It would not trigger an immediate workforce reduction, she said, and workers whose offices and bureaus are eliminated can apply for other openings.
“It’s not something where people are being fired today. They are not. No one is going to be walking out of the building. It’s not that kind of dynamic,” Ms. Bruce said. “It’s a road map.”
Republicans quickly praised the reorganization, but Democrats said it sidelined congressional input and threatened to greatly erode national security and U.S. global influence.
The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks, said Mr. Rubio’s slimmed down State Department would ax significant aspects of America’s foreign policy that have long enjoyed bipartisan support.
“These potentially sweeping changes have less to do with streamlining the State Department and more to do with eviscerating America’s soft power, including our values-driven defense of human rights and democracy globally,” the New York lawmaker said.
Committee Chairman Brian Mast, Florida Republican and an injured war veteran, said in a statement the reorganization “will make the State Department leaner and meaner and ensure every dollar and diplomat puts America First.”
Mr. Rubio published a new organization chart outlining the offices that will remain open. It shows a leaner department but one that includes key international offices, including the Bureau of African Affairs. A leaked draft of an executive order to reorganize the department had called for slashing the bureau completely. The secretary had called the leaked draft “fake news.”
The department’s economic policy will be consolidated into the Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment, and security assistance and arms control will be combined in the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.
The reorganization chart eliminates the Office of Global Change, which is responsible for implementing and managing U.S. international policy on climate change, as well as the Office of Global Women’s Issues, which the department had described as having “a mandate to promote the rights and empowerment of women and girls through U.S. foreign policy.”
Democracy, human rights and religious freedom are consolidated into one bureau.
Ms. Bruce could not answer whether the State Department will continue to operate programs to counter extremism, promote human rights and prevent war crimes, which do not appear on the new organizational chart.
She would not confirm a report that undersecretaries have been instructed to slash workers in each division by 15%.
She described the reorganizing effort as independent from but aligned with the Department of Government Efficiency, which has played a leading role in shrinking the government workforce.
“This is a change,” Ms. Bruce said. “Sometimes we know that change is difficult, but in this particular case, it had to happen because of the unsustainability of the size of government and that is why we are doing it.”
Mr. Rubio earlier this year announced the U.S. Agency for International Development would become part of the State Department, which resulted in mass layoffs of USAID workers and the cancellation of thousands of contracts. The new organization chart lists the administrator of the slimmed-down USAID at the top, alongside the secretary of state.
Mr. Rubio last week shuttered the Global Engagement Center, which he said sought to censor speech through media outlets and platforms. Congress voted to close the center, but Mr. Rubio said it renamed itself and kept operating in the same fashion.
In a Substack posted Tuesday, Mr. Rubio described a State Department weighed down by an overwhelming bureaucracy that stifles the most productive employees and allows “radical ideologues and bureaucratic infighters” to push through their own agendas “that are often at odds with those of the President and undermine the interests of the United States.”
Without a major reorganization, Mr. Rubio said, the State Department is unable to carry out effective foreign policy.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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