By Farnoush Amiri and Matthew Lee
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, unveiled on Tuesday a massive overhaul of the State Department, with plans to reduce staff in the United States by 15% while closing and consolidating more than 100 offices worldwide within the framework of the “America First” mandate of the Trump administration.
The reorganization plan, announced by Rubio on social networks and detailed in documents obtained by the Associated Press, is the last effort of the White House to reinvent American foreign policy and re -assert the size of the federal government.
“We cannot win the battle for the 21st century with an swollen bureaucracy which stifles innovation and decay the rare resources,” said Rubio in an email on the scale of the department obtained by the AP. “This is why, under the direction of President Trump and in my direction, I announce a reorganization of the department so that he can take up the immense challenges of the 21st century and put America first.”
The plans include the consolidation of 734 offices and offices to 602 as well as the transition from 137 offices “to another location within the department to increase efficiency”, according to an information sheet obtained by the AP.
There will also be a “redesigned” office focused on foreign and humanitarian affairs to coordinate the remaining foreign assistance programs left in the State after the recentry of dismantling of the American agency for international development.
Some of the offices that should be deleted include the office of the global problem of women and the diversity and inclusion efforts of the ministry, which have been reduced since President Donald Trump took office in January. The State should also eliminate certain offices previously under the State Under-Secretary for Civil Security, Democracy and Human Rights, but the information sheet says that a large part of their work will continue in other sections of the department.
It is not clear if the reorganization would be implemented by a decree or other means. The project of reorganization proposals shared within the department in recent weeks has described a change of priorities even more drastic than that which revealed on Tuesday. Official plans intervened a week after the AP learned that the White House management and budget office proposed emptying the state budget of almost 50% and eliminating the financing of the United Nations and the NATO headquarters.
The budget proposal was still in a very preliminary phase and should not pass the congress.
Before changes to the State Department, the Trump administration reduced jobs and funding between agencies, health and social services education service.
On foreign policy, beyond the destruction of USAID, the State has also decided to undo the so-called other “soft power” institutions such as the media that provide new objectives, often in authoritarian countries, including the voice of America, the Middle East distribution networks, radio and radio / television radio, which broadcasts Cuba.
Amiri reported the United Nations.
California Daily Newspapers
