Brace yourselves—Secretary of State Marco Rubio just dropped a bureaucratic bombshell at the State Department with a wave of mass firings that’s got everyone from diplomats to Democrats clutching their pearls.
According to The Hill, Rubio kicked off a major reorganization plan, initiating layoffs on Monday that aim to trim down the department’s workforce, with notices sent out Friday morning to over 1,300 employees as part of a broader Trump administration push to streamline federal agencies and refocus American foreign policy.
This isn’t just a trim—it’s a full-on haircut, with around 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers in the U.S. receiving Reduction in Force (RIF) notices, and nearly 3,000 employees expected to exit in total.
The plan, first unveiled by Rubio back in April, slashes 132 offices and merges 137 others within the department, aiming to cut through layers of red tape that conservatives have long argued stifle efficiency.
Foreign service officers face a 120-day administrative leave before their final cut. At the same time, most civil servants get a tighter 60-day separation window, and all were told to return department property like laptops and diplomatic passports on Friday.
Rubio, speaking from Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, framed it coolly: “It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people.” But let’s be real—when you shutter entire bureaus, positions vanish, and so do livelihoods, no matter how you spin it.
The layoffs didn’t spare critical units, with the entire leadership of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) office and the bureau of population, refugees, and migration receiving RIF notices on Friday.
Earlier this month, Rubio also put the final nail in the coffin of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), echoing the White House’s drive to root out waste and inefficiency in government operations.
On July 1, Rubio wrote that “development objectives have rarely been met” and “anti-American sentiment has only grown,” a sharp jab at past policies that many on the right see as bloated and counterproductive.
Critics, including Democrats and former diplomats, are sounding the alarm, with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) declaring, “Now is the time to strengthen our diplomatic hand, not weaken it.” While her concern about crises in Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere carries weight, the argument ignores how often overstaffed bureaucracies fumble rather than fix global issues.
Shaheen added that “we can’t afford to not have experienced diplomats at the table,” a fair point—until you consider that quantity doesn’t equal quality when it comes to navigating foreign policy chessboards.
The American Foreign Service Association piled on, warning that “the administration has chosen to sideline the very professionals best equipped to navigate this moment.” Yet, isn’t it possible that a leaner team, unburdened by endless layers of approval, could punch above its weight against rivals like China?
Legally, the Supreme Court recently greenlit the Trump administration’s agency-wide layoffs by lifting a district judge’s injunction. However, it left room for future challenges to specific plans, a cautious nod to checks and balances.
Morally, voices like Shawn VanDiver of AfghanEvac called the cuts a “moral collapse,” especially with Afghan relocation efforts gutted at a critical time— a critique that stings, though it sidesteps whether those efforts were truly effective under the old structure.
