State Secretary Marco Rubio on Tuesday launched a major plan to dramatically restructure the Department of Foreign Affairs who will see many old offices and hundreds of positions are eliminated.
“In its current form, the department is swollen, bureaucracy, and cannot carry out essential diplomatic missions in the new era of this great power competition,” Rubio said in a statement. “The broad bureaucracy creates a system that is more bound to radical political ideology than advancing the national interest of the American core.”
Officials who are familiar with plans to say Rubio’s vision involves a reduction in the number of offices in the Department of Foreign Affairs from 734 to 602 and finally destroyed around 700 positions based in Washington for foreign and civil servant services.
Officials say that reduction will not be direct, and that leaders in the department will have 30 days to analyze and implement the plan.
State Secretary Marco Rubio arrived at Quai D’Orsay, French Foreign Minister for high talks to discuss Ukraine and its safety in Paris, April 17, 2025.
Julien de Rosa/Pool via AP
The updated organizational chart released by Rubio shows that the office in the Block cut is among those under the Department of Energy Resources and Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureaus, which aims to help the Federal Government “Anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflict,” according to the Department.
Other offices that will be eliminated based on these plans include the office of science and technology advisors for secretaries, the office of international religious freedom, offices to monitor and combat trafficking in people, global women’s office offices, global partnership offices, and global criminal justice offices, which aims to coordinate government responses to war crimes and the promotion.
Under the plan, the department will also combine two bureaus that focus on weapons control and eliminate units that focus on fighting violent extremism from the Department of Controlism Bureau.
Officials also hope that some of their special envoys and offices will be eliminated.
Spokesperson of the Department of Foreign Affairs Tammy Bruce said that the reorganization does not mean that the field of focus previously covered by offices that were eliminated were no longer a priority for the department.
“Of course, all these problems are important,” Bruce said, adding that the department would work in “combining” the topics of the topic in a new framework so that they could be “handled as a whole.”
However, officials say that other reductions are planned for regions in departments that are not directly affected by reorganization, and that deputy ministers throughout the bureau have been instructed to develop plans to reduce their personnel by 15% – steps that can cause thousands of additional work cutting.
The leadership of the Department of Foreign Affairs has been under increased pressure to reduce its workforce in the midst of broader cutting throughout the federal government which was pioneered by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
On Tuesday, Bruce reduced the role of Doge in the reorganization plan.
“We know that Americans like doge results. I think there are some questions, maybe, about how it is applied,” he said.
“I will say that Doge is not responsible for this, but this is the result of what we have learned and the fact that we appreciate the results,” Bruce added.
Trump administration has considered a budget proposal that will cut the budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs, according to the official, according to officials who are familiar with internal considerations and documents reviewed by ABC News.
Rubio’s restructuring does not discuss operations abroad department, which according to officials also tends to experience significant cuts in the coming months.