The Trump administration’s perennial push for steep budget cuts, an exodus of senior staffers with decades of experience and constant allegations that agency employees represent a deep state has sent morale at the State Department to an unprecedented low.
On top of that, President Trump has fired a senior diplomat after a whisper campaign mounted by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and abandoned steadfast allies in the Middle East to fend for themselves on the battlefield at the behest of Turkey’s government.
Current and former diplomats say the weight of those events is taking a startling and measurable toll on American foreign relations, and on their ability to carry out policy set by the White House.
Those diplomats are increasingly concerned that the White House and senior State Department leadership do not have their backs, particularly after Trump’s allies launched a whisper campaign that ended in the recall of Marie Yovanovitch as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
They also worry the president’s decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria — abandoning longtime Kurdish allies who fought the war against the Islamic State — will cause other allies to think twice about partnering with the United States.
“We have squandered our global leadership, alienated our friends and emboldened our enemies,” said one U.S. ambassador, who asked not to be named to provide a candid assessment. Morale in recent weeks, the ambassador said, “is at a new low, although I am not sure it could fall much lower than where it has been for the past three years.”
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In interviews, half a dozen current and former senior foreign service officers said the last few weeks have undermined what little faith they had left in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of Trump’s closest advisers.
Pompeo arrived in Foggy Bottom after diplomats endured a trying year under his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, who tried to slash his own budget and let senior civil and foreign service members walk out the door — a period one former ambassador called the “red terror.” Tillerson’s proposed cuts were so dramatic that Congress refused to allow them.
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But Pompeo’s alliance with Trump has come at the cost of his reputation with career officials. He was on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, when Trump promised that Yovanovitch was “going to go through some things.” On Wednesday, Pompeo’s former top aide, Michael McKinley, told House lawmakers that Pompeo did nothing when McKinley urged him to offer Yovanovitch a show of public support.
Pompeo on Sunday defended Trump’s recall of Yovanovitch on ABC’s “This Week.”
“Ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president,” Pompeo said. “And when a president loses confidence in an ambassador — it’s not in that ambassador, the State Department or America’s best interests for them to continue to stay in their post.”
Current and former officials have panned Pompeo’s handling of the situation.
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Now, the foreign service officers who pride themselves on carrying out their orders from Washington, regardless of whether those orders are given by a Democratic or Republican administration, believe that they serve at the pleasure of a president who views them as members of a so-called deep state.
“We do not expect, nor should we, that we can become the target of blatant political warfare apparently supported by our own department leadership,” the current ambassador said. “Who knew that an administration could sink so low as to sell out its own employees, carrying out stated U.S. policy, for personal political gain?”
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Some said that while the decision to end Yovanovitch’s tenure early would harm their ability to advance American interests through diplomacy, the decision to pull troops out of Syria and leave Kurdish allies to fight Turkey’s much more advanced military would cause more lasting damage.
“As shocking as the Ukraine situation is, Syria kills us,” the former ambassador said. “This is an ally in a war. All the other allies are watching how we treat our allies.”
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During Trump’s presidency, the number of applicants has dropped even more precipitously. In 2018, just 9,168 people took the test, the first step on an exhaustive path to becoming a Foreign Service officer; that figure was less than half the number who applied in 2013, according to the American Foreign Service Association.
“What makes this really different is it comes against 2 1/2 or almost three years of unrelenting criticism of the foreign service, the civil service, constant denigration of the work, being told you’re part of the deep swamp,” Kennedy said. “This is a building that’s been very seriously battered.”
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“We have squandered our global leadership, alienated our friends and emboldened our enemies,” said one US ambassador. https://t.co/pBE1pmy20F
— The Hill (@thehill) October 21, 2019
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