Trump administration plans to promote loyal diplomats after recalling 30 ambassadors, sources say | Trump administration
The Trump administration has quietly recalled nearly 30 ambassadors and other high-ranking foreign diplomats as it considers promoting appointees loyal to the new administration to higher levels in the State Department, according to diplomatic sources.
The recall of ambassadors or mission heads, confirmed by several current and former high-ranking diplomats, was unusual because it targeted career foreign service officers leading embassies abroad, who are typically left in place after a change of administration because they strive to be apolitical.
But the Trump administration had pledged to oust a “deep state” of civil servants in a process that critics called a purge of a professional class of government employees, including top foreign diplomats.
“This is a standard process in any administration,” a current senior State Department official said in response to a Guardian request for comment. “An ambassador is a personal representative of the president, and the president has the right to ensure that he has people in those countries who are advancing the America First agenda.”
The senior official also confirmed that the recalled ambassadors would not be fired, but rather reassigned. Plans to recall U.S. diplomats were first reported by Politico. A partial list of removals was first reported by the Associated Press.
A union representing US diplomats said it was “deeply concerned” about the process and many US diplomats told the Guardian they believed the promotions process had been weighed to elevate diplomats seen as friends of the administration. This process could politicize the foreign service, they said.
The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) “affirms that foreign service personnel who have conscientiously carried out the policies and procedures of a previous administration should not be penalized by retroactively imposed changes to promotional precepts,” the union wrote in a statement condemning the new policies.
“The department must explain how these actions promote fairness for those who were recommended but did not achieve promotion this year and will now face challenges because others were promoted before them.”
The reshuffle was not announced publicly, and State Department employees were quietly compiling lists of those who received recall orders over the weekend. “It’s a travesty,” said a former senior official who spoke to ambassadors and told them they would leave office. “It’s random, no one knows why they were removed or spared.”
The hardest hit region was Africa, where a dozen ambassadors or heads of mission were recalled from Niger, Uganda, Senegal, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Mauritius, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Burundi, Cameroon and Rwanda. In the Middle East, mission heads were recalled from Egypt and Algeria. European mission heads to receive recall orders included Slovakia, Montenegro, Armenia and North Macedonia.
“We have [around] “There are 80 vacant ambassadorial positions,” wrote Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Yet President Trump is ceding American leadership to China and Russia by removing qualified career ambassadors who serve faithfully no matter who is in power. This makes America less secure, less strong, and less prosperous.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at an end-of-year news conference last week that he had delivered a new list of hundreds of diplomats nominated for promotion after the Trump administration adjusted the criteria and panels of those who oversee the promotion process.
This was part of an administration effort to target “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies supporting minority applicants within various government agencies.
Powerful White House officials, like deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, have sought to install allies within the State Department to achieve goals of limiting immigration to the United States. Promoting diplomats aligned with the current White House administration would further politicize the diplomatic corps, AFSA said.
