Rubio's State Department scale-down: efficiency or global retreat?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement of a major reorganization of the State Department this week was meant to signal a leaner foreign policy machine, removing layers of bureaucracy that he says slowed down quick action in a crisis-ridden world. 

But critics are warning that the Trump administration is kneecapping America’s influence on the international stage, having already gutted U.S. foreign policy tools including U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Voice of America and offices focused on economic development abroad. 

“My concern is that we are eliminating some of our strongest assets,” said Esther Brimmer, senior fellow in global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations and who served as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs during the Obama administration.

“It could be that some of these changes actually are helpful and bring together people who've been in different cones of the department, but we'll have to see in the implementation.”

Tibor Nagy, who returned to retirement after four months serving as undersecretary for management under Rubio, said he was “gung-ho” about the secretary’s reorganization, even as he’s criticized the manner of the shut-down of USAID, which he called chaotic.  

“I’ve been with the State Department since 1978 and spent most of that time in the field in Africa, but of course, it's given me an opportunity to see the State Department's evolution. And the larger it got and the more bureaus that were established, the more dysfunctional it became,” he said. 

Rubio’s reorganization, which was announced on Tuesday, included eliminating 132 offices and transitioning 137 other offices to other locations within the agency — a move even critics concede may deliver some needed streamlining around policy development. 

“I used to shake my head that the single issue bureaus, whenever an important policy piece made it through the rounds, they would do what I came to call a Christmas tree, they would want to hang their ornament on it,” Nagy said. 

Rubio, in an interview with The Free Press’s "Honestly with Bari Weiss" Podcast, said the reorganization is meant to bring “stability, some organizational streamlining that allows us to further foreign policy in a way that balances all of the things we have to take into consideration when we pursue foreign policy, and we can deliver it efficiently and fast.” 

Among the biggest changes Rubio announced was the elimination of the undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights — the so-called “J” bureau in State Department parlance — with the seven offices under its authority either renamed, moved to regional bureaus or eliminated. 

The J bureau is being reimagined as Office of the Coordinator of Foreign and Humanitarian Affairs. It will coordinate foreign assistance, but regional bureaus will disperse aid. 

This comes after the near-elimination of USAID, the $40 billion humanitarian arm of the agency. The administration says the remaining 10 percent of USAID programs are merging into the State Department. 

“Taken together, these changes deprioritize human rights, equity, health, and civilian protection, circumscribing the remit of U.S. diplomacy and sidelining core American values,” Dani Schulkin, Tess Bridgeman and Andrew Miller, wrote in an analysis for the online policy journal Just Security. The authors most recently served in different capacities in the Biden administration. 

“The Trump administration’s latest reorganization is not just a reshuffle. It’s a realignment of diplomatic priorities, one that seems set to constrain U.S. soft power, reduce institutional capacity on human rights, and centralize messaging under fewer leadership nodes.”

Rubio pushed back against that line of criticism, saying that remaining foreign assistance, human rights advocacy, democracy promotion and global criminal justice will be better served under specific regional bureaus — seven offices that span Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, the Western Hemisphere and international organizations. 

“We’re still going to be involved in those things, caring about human rights, but it’s going to be run at the embassy and regional level, not out of some office in Washington, D.C. that has that title,” Rubio said. 

“That’s just not realistic foreign policy in today’s world.”

Brimmer, from the Council on Foreign Relations, said some of the reorganization makes sense, empowering the regional bureaus, moving certain law enforcement activities and creating an emerging threats bureau under the auspices of the Arms Control and International Security. 

But she raised concern about issues siloed into regional categories but are important in linking countries together — such as democracy and human rights — when the languages and locations are different. 

“The United States has been a leading proponent of the idea that democracy and human rights actually helps security and stability. It's harder to manage these issues that are larger, if the structure is not correct, and that's where I have concerns," she said. “How they implement this will matter.”

Nagy agreed it’s too soon to judge the effectiveness of Rubio’s shakeup. 

“I think a lot of it is we're cleaning up, but part of that is going to be seen, I don't think it can be anticipated because the functions remain,” he said.

“So at the end of the day, the question is going to be: How effectively are those policies implemented?” 

Concerns about the State reorganization are compounded by ongoing anger over other major cuts on the foreign policy front. These include the effective closure of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which funded thousands of journalists in places with little to no independent media, and Millennium Challenge Corporation, which invested in development projects in poor but stable countries, with an eye toward boxing out Chinese influence. 

There are also rumored cuts coming to the State Department’s workforce and footprint both at home and overseas. 

Proposals are reportedly circulating of cutting the State’s domestic staff by 15 percent. At the start of the year, the administration put in place a hiring freeze, canceled the February foreign service exam and suspended testing for Foreign Service Specialist Candidates and for its Consular Fellows Program candidates, Politico reported in February. 

And the administration is also looking at scaling down embassies and consulates overseas. The New York Times reported the plans include closing 10 embassies and 17 consulates, touching nearly every continent. 

Critics worry the impact is likely to be felt on services for American tourists, businesses and U.S. visibility into troubled hotspots. 

Gordon Gray, the former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, said Rubio’s reorganization looked like an effort to “send off” DOGE, adding the secretary seems to be working against his own directive that America’s foreign policy should be focused on making the U.S. stronger, safer and more prosperous. 

“There are a number of steps that have already been taken where we’re kneecapping ourselves,” said Gray, currently the Kuwait professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula affairs at the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs.