A confidential draft executive order proposing a sweeping overhaul of the United States State Department has sent tremors through diplomatic circles, with leaked details pointing to the potential dismantling of bureaus dealing with Africa, climate, refugees, human rights, democracy, and gender equality.
The 16-page draft, first reported by The New York Times and later seen by Bloomberg, outlines what would be one of the most radical restructurings of the department since its establishment in 1789.
If enacted, the changes would come into effect by 1 October and signal a dramatic departure from long-standing US commitments to multilateral diplomacy.
According to the Guardian, the draft outlines a consolidation of the State Department into four regional bureaus covering the Indo-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eurasia.
Sub-Saharan Africa would bear the brunt of the cuts, with an unspecified number of embassies and consulates marked for closure.
The Bureau of African Affairs, the Bureau of International Organizations, and the Office of Global Women's Issues would be eliminated altogether.
Also facing the axe are the special envoy for climate and various diplomatic operations in Canada, with the embassy in Ottawa slated for substantial downsizing under a newly formed North American Affairs Office within the Secretary’s portfolio.
State Department-awarded Fulbright scholarships would be limited to master’s programmes in national security disciplines, focusing on “critical” languages. Meanwhile, fellowships linked to historically Black Howard University in Washington would be terminated as part of the administration’s push to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
In a further departure from tradition, diplomatic personnel would be assigned to one global region for the duration of their careers, ending the long-standing rotation system. The foreign service exam would also be scrapped, with new recruitment based on alignment with presidential foreign policy priorities and subject to direct presidential approval.
The draft also proposes folding the responsibilities of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) into the Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs, effectively absorbing its core duties under State Department oversight.
Despite the document’s sweeping nature, the US State Department has dismissed the reporting as unfounded. A spokesperson told Newsweek the coverage was “entirely based on a fake document”. Echoing that view, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to X (formerly Twitter), denouncing the reporting as “fake news”, stating The New York Times had “fallen victim to another hoax”.
Nonetheless, concerns persist. A senior diplomatic official in Africa suggested the actual reforms under discussion within the State Department are likely to be less drastic, while a commentator on a US foreign service Reddit forum described the leak as a “red herring”, possibly designed to soften the reception to a less extreme but still controversial reorganisation.
The leak follows earlier Trump administration moves to curtail international aid and consolidate foreign operations. One of several circulating internal proposals, another reportedly advocates halving the department's budget, while a third recommends shuttering 10 embassies and 17 consulates.
With over 13,000 foreign service officers, 11,000 civil servants and 45,000 local employees across more than 270 missions globally, the scale of the proposed reforms would mark a profound shift in America’s global diplomatic footprint—if they materialise.
