In the final week of May, during a congressional recess while most Americans were focused on Memorial Day, the start of summer, and graduation season, Secretary of State Marco Rubio quietly notified Congress of incoming changes to the Department of State. The congressional notification outlined Secretary Rubio’s earlier announced intention to “restructure or eliminate certain bureaus and offices that no longer advance such Department and Administration priorities.”
This reorganization of the Department of State will radically alter the functions, tools, and priorities of U.S. diplomacy. The plan will eliminate many of the offices in its “J family,” which leads the Department’s work supporting human rights, democratic institutions, peacebuilding, refugees, and religious freedom. The plan eliminates the position of Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Human Rights and Democracy, abolishes the Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations and cuts 80% of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor’s staff.
The work of the “J family” is critical to ensure that the U.S. can respond with tools other than the military to prevent and resolve violent conflict and to promote and protect basic human rights for people around the world.
FCNL knows the value of “diplomacy, responsible development, the rule of law, and international cooperation are the most effective and principled means of global conflict prevention and resolution.” The work of the “J family” is critical to ensure that the U.S. can respond with tools other than the military to prevent and resolve violent conflict and to promote and protect basic human rights for people around the world. While the “J family” has not always met their ideals, their role and functions has been critical to continuing to make progress toward the world we seek.
The statement to Congress claimed the “J family” offices are “prone to ideological capture and radicalism,” and outlined new positions to replace them. These new offices reflect the Trump administration’s efforts to radically redefine American values. They are seeking to embed racist ideas in the State Department’s org chart, including a focus on so-called “civilizational allies” with “a shared Western civilizational heritage.” They include a deputy assistant secretary of state for “Democracy and Western Values” and an office of “natural rights” which will “ground the department’s values-based diplomacy in traditional Western conceptions of core freedoms.”
The reorganization also merges two key offices relevant to nuclear weapons and arms control—the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) and the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS)—into a single bureau with fewer leadership positions. This change is bad for arms control. It risks diluting focus and expertise in two highly complex areas: preventing the spread of nuclear and other dangerous weapons and maintaining global arms agreements. Fewer senior officials overseeing a broader portfolio could weaken efforts to curb proliferation at a time when dedicated U.S leadership and expertise is critically needed.
The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), which largely serves refugees and displaced individuals, would assume some of the humanitarian and disaster assistance work previously conducted by the now-disbanded U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Notably, a new Office of Remigration will undertake repatriation work under PRM. The term “remigration” stems from global racist, xenophobic, and ethnonationalist politics. While safe, voluntary returns have existed under PRM for previously vulnerable groups, it is unclear how the Office of Remigration’s functions will integrate the State Department into the administration’s self-deportation plans.
Many advocates worry about more non-refoulement violations. Non-refoulement is a universal principle not to return people to where they are at risk of torture, persecution, or extreme oppression. Other changes under PRM, including to refugee admissions, mark another example of the Trump administration devaluing lives.
Peace is mentioned less than 5 times over the 136-page document, and only in relation to bureaus being eliminated.
The Trump administration’s statement to Congress claims this dramatic reduction in size and reorganization of the Department of State is needed to “refocus on core U.S. foreign policy objectives and the needs of contemporary diplomacy.” However, throughout the plan, work on human rights, arms control, and conflict prevention are abolished. Peace is mentioned less than 5 times over the 136-page document, and only in relation to bureaus being eliminated. With 56 current conflicts around the globe, the most since World War II, multiple genocides and mass atrocities taking place, and unprecedented displacement, surely contemporary diplomacy calls for more work towards peace, human rights, arms control and conflict prevention – not its abolition.
