Reuters: Inside the Unravelling of US Diplomacy Under Trump
More than 100 ambassadorial posts are vacant as Trump leans on loyalist envoys and outside allies for major talks.
- President Donald Trump is reshaping U.S. diplomacy by bypassing traditional embassies for personal envoys, leaving 109 of 195 ambassadorial posts worldwide vacant. Foreign governments struggle to navigate the administration's erratic signals.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a comprehensive reorganisation plan last year, calling the State Department a bloated bureaucracy gripped by radical political ideology. About 3,000 employees left, representing roughly 15% of U.S.-based staff.
- Trump relies on Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for sensitive diplomacy despite neither having formal diplomatic experience. Experts claim Witkoff's Iran briefings displayed "technical incompetence," mischaracterizing uranium-enrichment capabilities.
- Foreign allies including Britain, France, and Germany choose silence over confrontation to avoid provoking the president. Retired diplomat Barbara Leaf warned the administration has left vital missions in a "parlous state" during crisis.
- Oxford University professor Margaret MacMillan warned the administration is eroding America's capacity to understand the world, raising global instability risks. This model leaves Washington unable to build relationships or avert wars effectively.
5 Articles
5 Articles
Inside the unraveling of U.S. diplomacy under Trump
Donald Trump’s threats, personal envoys and hollowed‑out embassies are reshaping U.S. diplomacy. Allies from Europe to Asia are rewriting the rules of engagement — ignoring the president’s rhetoric and forging new diplomatic channels to manage decisions driven increasingly by personalities, not institutions.
Inside the unravelling of US diplomacy under Trump
When Donald Trump warned Iran on April 7 that “a whole civilisation will die tonight,” a European diplomat in Washington said his government wanted an urgent answer to a chilling question: Was the US president contemplating the use of a nuclear weapon? Across Europe and Asia, the concern went beyond whether Trump’s apocalyptic threat was real or bluster. One fear, the diplomat said, was that Russia could seize the moment to justify similar threa…
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