Overhaul of US State Department eliminates climate envoy and war crimes offices
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a restructuring of the US State Department on Tuesday, saying the "bloated" organisation was ideologically out of sync with the Trump administration. The revamp eliminates an office on war crimes and the role of special climate envoy, which was a senior position under former president Joe Biden.
Marco Rubio billed the plan as a major shake-up in the State Department, long a bête noire for many US conservatives, although the outline was less drastic than drafts that have circulated – including one of which would have virtually wiped out day-to-day diplomacy in 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".
It will be replaced by a new office of "coordination for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs" that will absorb functions of the US Agency for International Development – gutted at the start of the Trump administration with the elimination of more than 80 percent of programs.
The new office will oversee a bureau on "democracy, human rights and religious freedom" – a shift from the current "Democracy, Human Rights and Labor", which included advocacy for workers' rights overseas.
Previous administrations from both major US parties had separate envoys in charge of religious freedom, a position now being merged.
In an opinion piece, Rubio aired grievances about previous work within the bureau, including its unsuccessful internal push to restrict weapons sales to Israel on human rights grounds.
"The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against 'anti-woke' leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes," he wrote in the piece on Substack.
'Eviscerating American soft power'
The restructuring formalizes the end of a special envoy on climate, which had been a senior position under Joe Biden.
The plan also eliminates an office on war crimes, whose recent work has included documenting Russia's treatment of civilians in Ukraine. The Office of Global Criminal Justice monitored war crimes and atrocities globally.
Rubio's outline also gets rid of the Office of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, whose activities have included a task force that tries to prevent atrocities overseas before they happen.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the end of offices did not necessarily mean their functions would end and that their areas of focus "could be implemented in a better, more nimble, faster way".
Lawmakers of the rival Democratic Party accused Rubio, a former senator, of a lack of transparency and of ceding ground to China, which has topped the United States globally in its number of diplomatic missions.
"These potentially sweeping changes have less to do with streamlining the State Department and more to do with eviscerating American soft power, including our values-driven defense of human rights and democracy globally," said Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Brandon Wu of anti-poverty group ActionAid USA said that Rubio's plan was "part of an unhinged crusade against perceived 'woke' policies and practices, not a coherent plan for reform".
The plan, which Congress has been notified about, would eliminate 132 of the department's 734 bureaus and offices, according to an internal State Department memo.
Undersecretaries will submit plans to reduce staff by 15 percent, the document added.
It was not immediately clear how many people would be laid off as a result of the revamp, but a report in online publication the Free Press, which Rubio posted on X, said an additional 700 positions would be eliminated.
A senior State Department official, asked about the figures, said they sounded "correct" but that some positions may be eliminated without laying people off.
"There will not be stories or images of people carting their belongings out of the building today," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
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US shuts down office that fought disinformation from Russia, China and Iran
The US State Department has shut down its Global Engagement Center, which aimed to counter disinformation from countries including Russia, China and Iran. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed on Wednesday that the centre restricted free speech in the US and elsewhere.
The State Department has shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that he had closed what had been known as the Global Engagement Center because it had taken actions to restrict freedom of speech in the United States and elsewhere.
The agency has been a frequent target of criticism from conservatives for calling out media and online reports that it said are biased or untruthful. At times, it has identified US websites and social media accounts that it argued were amplifying misinformation, particularly related to the Russia-Ukraine war.
“It is the responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech,” Rubio said, charging that the office worked "to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving”.
Rubio said that is “antithetical” to the principles that “we should be upholding”.
Congress had supported the centre's work, as had previous State Department leadership.
“This is a deeply misleading (and) unserious portrayal of an organization focused on identifying foreign – primarily Russian – disinformation ops,” former State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a post on X.
The State Department's official website shows that the Global Engagement Center closed on December 23, 2024.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
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