The Empty Seats of US Diplomacy

Trump speaks sarcastically about the removal of U.S. officials from Russia, but a lack of personnel paralyzes the State Department.

Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care about the employment issues at the State Department. The U.S. president once again challenged the political orthodoxy on Thursday by scornfully thanking his Russian colleague, Vladimir Putin, for his decision to remove 755 U.S. diplomatic workers from Russia in retaliation for the new sanctions imposed on Moscow that were approved by Congress.

“I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down our payroll, and as far as I’m concerned I’m very thankful that he let go a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. There’s no real reason for them to go back,” Trump told the press from his New Jersey golf club, where he’s spending his vacation. “We’re going to save a lot of money.”

Trump’s praise of Putin – whom he views as a stereotypical strongman and whom he scarcely criticizes – is in contrast to the position of the Department of State and of Congress, which condemned a decision by Moscow that evoked the Cold War, and which issued a warning about the harm this would cause to diplomatic efforts.

The real estate tycoon’s words symbolize his contempt for the foreign service and highlight the absence of appointments that torments the department run by Rex Tillerson.

As part of his isolationist doctrine (embodied in the “America First” slogan), Trump has proposed a 31 percent cut in the State Department budget. He also proposed a drastic cut in foreign aid and an 8 percent reduction of the workforce, which currently numbers around 75,000.

Tillerson, who before his appointment was the CEO the ExxonMobil oil and gas company, has called on his executive skills in an attempt to reorganize the diplomatic web of Foggy Bottom, as his department is known. He has hired two consulting firms to conduct an internal analysis of the department’s functions, and has decided to halt new hires for secretary and registrar positions until he familiarizes himself with the organizational chart of upper management. The paralysis that lives within the department has brought Tillerson a rainstorm of criticism in diplomatic and military circles.

The result is that the U.S. diplomatic mission is filled with temporary positions, and senior workers are leaving, bothered by the secretary of state’s management. In his first six months as president, Trump nominated 20 people to senior positions at the State Department (eight of which have been confirmed by the Senate), a much lower figure than that of his predecessors. A similar pattern is apparent in other government agencies. The Republican president blames Democratic opposition for the slow confirmation rate.

The empty seats are especially noticeable in U.S. embassies. The diplomats named to political positions by Barack Obama stepped down in January with the change in the White House. According to the American Foreign Service Association, Trump has only named 31 ambassadors, of which 13 have been confirmed by the Senate. Of the most important destinations, only Beijing, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Ottawa, Rome and London are occupied. The number of Trump’s appointments is once again fewer than his predecessor’s.

The lack of diplomats in Europe worries the Pentagon. “It hurts not having ambassadors,” Ben Hodges, commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, told Politico at the end of July. He holds that, above all, it is a “bad moment” not to have an ambassador in Germany, an important ally for Washington and the location of the United States’ main base on the continent.

There also is no U.S. ambassador in Russia, while Trump’s nominee awaits confirmation. The U.S. relies on 1,200 diplomatic workers in the country, most of whom are Russian. It is probable that they will be those most affected by Putin’s order to reduce the number of personnel to 450 as of September.

Trump does not hide his desire to reach out to Moscow. Even though he ended up signing, he opposed the sanctions Congress approved to punish the alleged Russian cyberattack during the 2016 election. Thursday wasn’t the first time Trump broke the basic rules of diplomatic conduct, particularly with a supposed rival like Russia. In July 2016, Trump called on the Kremlin to hack the erased emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server.