According to The Washington Post, State Department officials “left open the possibility that far greater downsizing could occur — affecting, potentially, tens of thousands of the department’s 80,000 employees globally and numerous U.S. consulates and facilities abroad.” Brett Bruen, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, told the Post that the cuts are “designed to satiate the DOGE demand for cuts, irrespective of the damage to American interests.” By slashing the State Department at the same time as promising a record-breaking $1 trillion budget for the Pentagon, Trump is signaling to the world that he's increasingly interested in using the threat of force instead of diplomacy to achieve his foreign policy aims. While we don’t yet know the details of all the ways the State Department is going to be cut, reducing staff and influence operations will generally leave a vacuum for China to exploit as the two superpowers vie for access to natural resources and infrastructure with partner countries around the world.
Author: Zeeshan Aleem
Published at: 2025-04-23 21:49:36
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