Insiders Expose Trump ‘Crisis’ at the State Department

Politics admin July 14, 2026 0 Comments

Insiders Expose Trump ‘Crisis’ at the State Department

Insiders have warned that Donald Trump’s overhaul of the State Department is having a devastating effect on the United States’ standing on the world stage.

A Financial Times feature detailed how the State Department has been “under siege” during the 80-year-old president’s second term as Trump does away with decades of foreign policy precedent.

This includes leaving dozens of crucial ambassador positions unfilled and filling other roles with his close allies while shunning more experienced candidates for high-status positions.

Diplomats fear that the shift toward a MAGA approach to foreign diplomacy is not only weakening America’s long-respected authority on the world stage but also introducing a worrying dismissiveness toward expertise.

“We are looking at the most damaging crisis in the 102-year history of the foreign service,” Nick Burns, a veteran diplomat who served as ambassador to China until Trump returned to office last year, told the FT.

Bill Burns, a former ambassador to Russia and deputy secretary of state before leading the CIA under President Joe Biden, also described how “things are quite bad” under Trump’s overhaul of the State Department.

He added that not only is the Trump administration attempting a form of “retribution” against the department and career officers while complaining about a bloated bureaucracy, but “almost even worse” is the “dismissiveness towards professional diplomacy.”

The overhaul of the State Department during Trump’s second term can clearly be seen in the number of vacant positions. As of late June, more than half of American ambassadorships worldwide remain unfilled, including key posts in Germany and Saudi Arabia.

Across Africa, nearly 80 percent of U.S. embassies lack an ambassador.

Of the 101 nominations for ambassadorships Trump has made during his second term, just nine were career diplomats.

Trump instead relied on a small circle of loyalists for top diplomatic positions. This includes his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, a real estate mogul and longtime friend with no prior diplomatic experience, who has played a key role in Iran ceasefire talks alongside the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Bill Burns suggested that not having any career diplomats involved in the crunch talks with Tehran may have contributed to Trump’s limp memorandum of understanding, which even some Republicans say amounted to a “surrender” by the U.S.

“You need that kind of apolitical career expertise to be able to compete with, in this case, Iranian negotiators, who I know from personal experience are deeply versed in the issues,” Burns told the FT. “The same is true if we ever get to a point of serious negotiation on Russia and Ukraine.”

Yael Lempert, a State Department veteran who was fired as ambassador to Jordan on the first day of Trump’s return to the White House, gave a more damning assessment of the Iran negotiations.

“We were outplayed,” she told the FT. “The Iranians are experienced negotiators and they brought teams of experts with them who knew these issues inside and out. The U.S. did not, and so unilaterally put our side at a disadvantage.”

Elsewhere, the State Department has also been gutted across the board, with more than 3,000 jobs—amounting to more than 20 percent of its workforce—cut since Trump resumed office.

One former senior diplomat likened the drastic overhaul to a medieval siege.

“First they lob the cannonballs into the town… then they salt the fields,” they said.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the department rejects the “false premises” detailed in the FT article.

“This is a completely fake hit piece on the Department that denigrates the work of ‘career’ and ‘political’ officials alike using former officials from the previous administration,” Pigott told the Daily Beast.

“The State Department rejects the premise that key decisions were made without meaningful input from experienced professionals,” he added. “Career and political officials across the Department, along with our embassies and interagency partners, are working side by side.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Daily Beast: “President Trump’s foreign policy apparatus is more effective and responsive to the president’s priorities than ever before. The Biden administration proved that massive, bloated bureaucracy means duplicative and worse outcomes.”