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President Donald Trump froze the vacations of the US ambassadorial corps and informed about 30 career diplomats that their postings were ending and they were to return home within a month.
the new York Times Reports late Monday said the purge has claimed the jobs of more than two dozen foreign service officers whose experience at the State Department varies from the type of political appointee, typically a political donor and supporter, who are often selected by presidents to highly sought-after positions.
A spokesman for the union representing such career diplomats objected. Times The fired officials were given little notice and the purge was said to represent the largest single firing of a group of such ambassadors in the agency’s history.
Nikki Gamer of the American Foreign Service Association said, “The lack of transparency and process rapidly breaks down long-standing norms.” List of affected posts received by Times indicated that the dismissals include several positions in sub-Saharan Africa where the White House is apparently content to leave similar positions vacant until 2025.
His union said in a statement: “These sudden, opaque and vague recalls harm diplomatic effectiveness and American credibility abroad.”
It is unclear whether the Trump administration will be able to fill those roles, which require Senate confirmation. It is also unknown whether the President plans to use those positions as rewards for his political supporters, something that has become a theme of his second presidency. News of the firing came just days before the Christmas holidays and is the latest blow to the State Department, which has undergone sweeping changes under the second Trump administration.
The agency is now led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio It houses the remains of USAID’s main operations. While Rubio and his allies, Following the work of Elon Musk Earlier this year, continue to shut down the work of an agency authorized by Congress (with the full blessing of the twin GOP majorities on the Hill). US foreign aid decreased under the second Trump administration as Musk led spending cuts targeting the main means of US diplomatic leverage and soft power around the world.
recently Vanity Fair The article cites 11 interviews with Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wills, senior White House aide Called those USAID cuts a serious mistake.
A senior official of the State Department gave this information Washington Post That the dismissal was “a standard procedure in any administration”, although turnover of such positions in the first year of a new presidency is generally limited to political appointees. But the President’s inability or unwillingness to fill such vacancies that already exist suggests that they are part of a larger scale back of America’s presence in the region, including the African continent.
“The ambassador is the personal representative of the president and it is the president’s mandate to ensure that these countries have individuals who will advance the ‘America First’ agenda,” the official said.
In a broader sense, the Trump administration and the White House (where Trump and his allies have concentrated most policymaking) are busy getting rid of any and all holdovers from the Biden administration, at both the personnel and policy levels.
While agencies like the U.S. Department of Education are rolling back Biden-era programs, the president himself has allowed and encouraged allies inside and outside the administration to direct a witch hunt-esque purge of federal employees seen as disloyal or unsupportive of Trump’s MAGA agenda at all levels of the federal government. Earlier in 2025, it included the elimination of the White House National Security Council, then chaired by Michael Waltz.
However, the Justice Department and the White House have gone further than any previous administration, and have sought to undermine the validity of pardons and other proclamations issued by President Joe Biden from 2021-2025. The Democratic president is accused of using Autopen to digitally sign documents, which Trump and his allies have argued, without providing evidence to support his claims, means Biden didn’t know what he was signing.
Trump said in a Truth Social post last month, “I am hereby rescinding all executive orders, and anything that was not signed directly by crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated AutoPen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the AutoPen process and if he says he was involved, he will be charged with perjury.”
He does not have the legal authority to rescind pardons or pardons issued by a former president, but like all presidents he has the authority to undo executive orders with a penstroke.