State Department Releases Reorganization Plan

The State Department released its plans for reorganizing the agency Tuesday, a first step toward reducing what the Trump administration says is an inefficient foreign affairs operation.

“In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

An organization chart released to the public shows that the ultimate plan for trimming the State Department does not go as far as versions previously reported, but it still eliminates several human rights-focused bureaus. Future changes to the plan are also still possible.

Among the bureaus and offices the administration plans to cut are the Office of Global Women’s Issues and its Diversity and Inclusion Office, which were expected given the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating such programs from the federal government. State will also eliminate some offices previously housed under the undersecretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights and fold much of its work into other sections of the department, per a fact sheet distributed to State Department staff and reviewed by POLITICO.

Rubio said in a lengthy post on the State Department website that the new structure will make it easier for regional bureaus and embassies to “advance America’s interests abroad because region-specific functions will be streamlined to increase functionality.” To that end, he said “redundant offices will also be removed” and “non-security foreign assistance will be consolidated in regional bureaus.”

The State Department also will eliminate the office of the director of the Foreign Service Institute, which provides language training and other educational support for career foreign service officers.

New offices will be created as well. The plan would create a new assistant secretary for emerging threats, which will report for the undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

In an email to staff obtained by POLITICO, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said that the current plan put forward “will not result in any changes to the department’s ongoing programs” and “will not affect any overseas embassies, posts or operations.”

The State Department is telegraphing that staff cuts may occur, but that the process will be orderly compared with the cuts that occurred at other agencies. Per a document distributed to State Department staff, anyone losing their job will be given a 60-day notice, as opposed to the sudden firings that occurred when the Trump administration targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The plan reflects the desire of the Trump administration to cut what it sees as largesse at Foggy Bottom and other government agencies. Inside State, some career diplomats were relieved, seeing as though earlier plans projected steeper cuts and a more aggressive restructuring.

“It could have been much worse,” said one State Department official, granted anonymity out of fears of reprisal.

The moves appear to have mollified Republicans who wanted to see major changes in Foggy Bottom. House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, said in a statement posted to X that “this reorganization will make the State Department leaner and meaner and ensure every dollar and diplomat puts America First.”

Democrats on Capitol Hill say they’ll be closely tracking the efforts to reconfigure the State Department, given the Trump administration’s previously aggressive approach to gutting federal agencies.

In a statement, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that she and her colleagues “welcome reforms where needed — but they must be done with care." Shaheen added she “will be scrutinizing these proposed reforms” and vowed she would hold “Rubio to his pledge” to engage Congress in the efforts to restructure the State Department.