Mass dismissal followed days after the Supreme Court paved the way for the US president to eviscerate entire government jobs. Over 1,350 employees of the US State Department were terminated in a significant diplomatic overhaul ordered by President Donald Trump, in an action critics forecast would contain the United States’ power worldwide.
Friday’s mass dismissal, which impacted 1,107 United States-based civil service and 246 foreign service officers, occurred just when Washington is facing several crises on the global scene: Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, the nearly two-year Gaza war, and the Middle East teetering on high-strung tension between Israel and Iran.
Diplomats and other employees applauded, leaving colleagues in tearful moments at the Washington headquarters of the department, which operates US foreign policy and the worldwide network of embassies. They were weeping as they escorted out boxes of belongings.
“It’s just heartbreaking to stand outside of these doors today and watch individuals come out crying because all they wanted to do was serve this nation,” US Senator Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, told Euronews. He served as a civilian adviser for the State Department in Afghanistan during former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The department layoffs occurred three days after the Supreme Court paved the way for the Trump administration to start implementing its plan to eviscerate entire government jobs. The conservative-led highest court removed a temporary injunction placed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to terminate possibly tens of thousands of workers.
The 79-year-old Republican claims he wants to break up what he refers to as the “deep state”. Since his inauguration in January, he has acted rapidly to put fierce personal loyalists in place and to sack swathes of experienced government employees.
Trump’s Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio explained that the foreign policy ministry is too bloated and needs to be thinned out by about 15 per cent. It’s not because we’re trying to get rid of people. But if you shut down the bureau, you don’t need those jobs,” Rubio explained to reporters during his ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Understand that some of these are jobs that are being cut, not individuals. The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) – the State Department employees’ union – denounced the “catastrophic blow to our national interests”
