Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (AP) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed more than 1,300 employees in accordance with a dramatic restructuring plan of the Trump management at the beginning of this year.
The department sends knowledge of dismissal to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service providers with domestic tasks in the USA, said a high -ranking civil servant of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who spoke about the condition of anonymity, to discuss personnel matters before individual announcements are sent to affected employees by e -mail.
The affected foreign service officers are immediately placed on the administrative leave for 120 days. After that, according to an internal message that was received by the Associated Press. For most affected officials, the separation period is 60 days, it said.
“In connection with the reorganization of the department … The department rationalizes domestic operations to concentrate on diplomatic priorities,” says the statement. “Reductions were carefully tailored to influence non-core functions, double or redundant offices and offices in which considerable efficiency stands from centralization or consolidation of functions and responsibilities can be seen.”
While he was praised by President Donald Trump, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and her Republican allies as overdue and necessary in order to make the department of slimmer, nimble and more capable, the cuts of current and former diplomats, which say that they were completely criticized for the US influence and their ability, existing and emerging threats abroad.
The Trump administration has redesigned American diplomacy and worked aggressively in order to reduce the size of the federal government, including mass generation ions in the context of steps to reduce entire departments such as the US agency for international development and the educational department.
A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Court removed the way for the layoffs, while the lawsuits that question the legality of the cuts continue to show. The department officially advised the employees on Thursday that they would soon send some of them. The work cuts are gigantic, but considerably less than many feared.
Rubio said that the officials had “taken a very conscious step to reorganize the Foreign Ministry in order to be more efficient and concentrated”.
“It is not a result of the attempt to get rid of people. However, if you close the office, you don’t need these positions,” he said on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he will take part in the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. “Understand that some of them are positions that are eliminated, not humans.”
He said some of the cuts will not be refilled or those that will be free because an employee took an early retirement.
The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents diplomats, asked the Foreign Ministry in the past month to assert the work cuts.
Messages about a violation of violence that not only dismiss the employees but also eliminated positions as a whole should “be one last resort,” said the President of the Association, Tom Yazdgerdi. “The disorder of the foreign service like this is the risk of national interests – and the Americans will bear the consequences everywhere.”
