Democrats urge Trump to reverse mass ambassador recalls

But the 10 ‍Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who penned the letter to Trump said the abrupt ‍mass recalls were an "unprecedented move" ‍that no other administration has undertaken since Congress established the modern Foreign Service a century ago and that there ⁠was no plan to replace the envoys with qualified candidates. In regions from the Indo-Pacific to Africa and the Balkans as well as Latin America, Washington would be on the back foot countering China's expanding economic reach, the senators said. In July, the Trump administration fired more than 1,300 State Department diplomats and civil servants as Washington ‌grappled with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia's war in Ukraine, the almost ‍two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran.