Memo reveals plan for US state department overhaul

But Marco Rubio claims the leaked document is a hoax

- ANDREW FEINBERG JOHN BOWDEN

A leaked draft of an executive order to reorganise the US Department of State reveals plans to slash entire departments and bureaus dealing with Africa, human rights, women’s rights, international religious freedom and climate change while tightening political control over the foreign service and handing more authority to the White House and political appointees.

The state department has denied the document’s authenticity, with secretary of state Marco Rubio dismissing it as a “hoax” in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

The specifics of the draft document, which was obtained and reviewed by The Independent, track closely with Trump administration efforts to undercut the institutional knowledge and authority of nonpartisan civil servants in other parts of the executive branch, as well as the administration’s push to change the conduct of American foreign relations to a more transactional model that prioritises self-interest over traditional values-based diplomacy that works through multilateral alliances.

It lays out what it calls a “disciplined reorganisation” of the department, which would eliminate a dedicated Bureau of African affairs in favour of a White House-run “Special Envoy Office for African Affairs” that would focus on counterterrorism and obtaining access to “critical natural resources” and would conduct only “select bilateral diplomacy” on “particular temporary matters”, while shuttering most of the department’s embassies on the African continent.