(Adnkronos) – Donald Trump has ordered nearly 30 ambassadors from diplomatic posts around the world to return to the United States within a few weeks, a move that, according to the American foreign service union, is unprecedented in the history of US diplomacy. “The people involved received the communication suddenly, generally by phone, without any explanation,” Nikki Gamer, spokesperson for the American Foreign Service Association, told the New York Times, stressing that “the method is highly irregular.”
The ambassadors removed by the Trump administration, who were confidentially notified over the weekend without an official announcement from the State Department, are all career diplomats who are traditionally left in their posts until the end of their four-year term even in the event of a change of administration because their appointments are not considered political.
But the Trump administration, which arrived in Washington with the goal of fighting what it calls the “deep state,” meaning the class of federal officials who would be opposed to Trump, intends to impose people loyal to the tycoon even at the level of career ambassadors, and not just politically appointed ones, chosen from among the president’s allies and financiers. “This is a standard process in every administration,” a State Department source claims, “an ambassador is a personal representative of the president, and it is the president’s right to have people who advance the America First agenda.” The removed ambassadors will not be fired, the source assures, but will receive another assignment.
“The lack of transparency and the method sharply contrast with long-standing norms; we can say with certainty that a mass recall of these proportions has never occurred since the Foreign Service was created,” is the reply from the foreign service union, which emphasizes that diplomats “who have done their duty by implementing the policies of a previous administration should not be penalized.”
According to the lists of removed career ambassadors, the majority of affected countries, about a dozen, are African countries, including Nigeria, Congo, Rwanda, and Algeria. Posts in the Middle East, including Egypt, and some European countries, such as Slovakia, Montenegro, Armenia, and North Macedonia, are also involved. According to Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the move is also alarming for US foreign policy.
“We have about eighty vacant diplomatic posts, but President Trump is still ceding the ground of US leadership to China and Russia by removing qualified career diplomats who serve loyally regardless of who is in power. This,” concludes the Democrat, “makes America less secure, less strong, and less prosperous.”
