{"id":68906,"date":"2025-07-04T01:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T01:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=68906"},"modified":"2025-07-04T01:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T01:38:12","slug":"over-100-former-senior-officials-warn-against-planned-staff-cuts-at-us-state-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=68906","title":{"rendered":"Over 100 former senior officials warn against planned staff cuts at US State Department"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than 130 retired diplomats and other former senior U.S. officials issued an open letter on Thursday criticising a planned overhaul of the State Department that could see thousands of employees laid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly condemn Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s announced decision to implement sweeping staff reductions and reorganisation at the U.S. Department of State,\u201d the officials said in the letter.<\/p>\n

The signatories included dozens of former ambassadors and senior officials, including Susan Rice, who served as national security advisor under President Barack Obama, a Democrat.<\/p>\n

The timing of the cuts remains unclear, with the U.S. Supreme Court expected to weigh in at any moment on a bid by U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to halt a judicial order blocking the firings.<\/p>\n

The administration in late May\u00a0notified Congress<\/a>\u00a0of a plan to overhaul its diplomatic corps that could cut thousands of jobs, including hundreds of members of its elite Foreign Service who advocate for U.S. interests in the face of growing assertiveness from adversaries such as China and Russia.<\/p>\n

Initial plans to send the notices last month were halted after a federal judge on June 13\u00a0temporarily blocked<\/a>\u00a0the State Department from implementing the reorganisation plan.<\/p>\n

The shake-up forms part of a push by\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0to shrink the federal bureaucracy, cut what he says is wasteful spending, and align what remains with his \u201cAmerica First<\/a>\u201d priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when the United States faces unprecedented challenges from strategic competitors, ongoing conflicts, and emerging security threats, Secretary Rubio\u2019s decision to gut the State Department\u2019s institutional knowledge and operational capacity is reckless,\u201d the former officials wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"OverMore than 130 retired diplomats and other former senior U.S. officials issued an open letter on Thursday criticising a planned overhaul of the State Department that could see thousands of employees laid off.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}