Trump administration plans to promote loyal diplomats after recall of 30 ambassadors, sources say

The Trump administration has quietly recalled nearly 30 ambassadors and other senior overseas diplomats as the Trump administration plans to promote appointees loyal to the new administration to higher levels of the state department, according to diplomatic sources.

The recall of the ambassadors or heads of mission, which were confirmed by several current and former senior diplomats, was unusual for targeting career foreign service officers heading embassies overseas who are generally left in place after a change in administration because they strive to be apolitical.

But the Trump administration had vowed to oust a “deep state” of civil servants in a process that critics have called a purge of a professional class of government employees including senior overseas diplomats.

“This is a standard process in any administration,” a current senior state department official said in response to a request for comment from the Guardian. “An ambassador is a personal representative of the President, and it is the President’s right to ensure that he has individuals in these countries who advance the America First agenda.”

The senior official also confirmed that the recalled ambassadors would not be fired, but would be reassigned instead. The plans to recall the US diplomats were first reported by Politico. A partial list of the removals was first reported by the Associated Press.

A union representing US diplomats said it was “deeply concerned” by the process and numerous US diplomats told the Guardian that they believed the promotions process had been weighed to elevate diplomats seen as friendly to the administration. That process could politicise the foreign service, they said.

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) “asserts that Foreign Service staff who dutifully executed the policies and procedures of a previous administration should not be penalized by retroactively imposed changes to the promotion precepts,” the union wrote in a statement condemning the new policies.

“The department must explain how these actions promote fairness for those who were recommended but not reached promotion this year and will now face challenges as others have been promoted ahead of them.”

The reshuffle was not announced publicly and state department employees were quietly compiling lists of who had received recall orders over this weekend. “This is a travesty,” said one former senior official who had spoken with ambassadors told they would be leaving their posts. “It’s random, no one knows why they were pulled or spared.”

The hardest hit region was Africa, where some one dozen ambassadors or chiefs of mission recalled from Niger, Uganda, Senegal, Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Burundi, Cameroon, and Rwanda. In the Middle East, heads of mission were recalled from Egypt and Algeria. European chiefs of mission to receive recall orders included Slovakia, Montenegro, Armenia and North Macedonia.

“We have [around] 80 vacant ambassadorships,” wrote Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Yet, President Trump is giving away US leadership to China and Russia by removing qualified career Ambassadors who serve faithfully no matter who’s in power. This makes America less safe, less strong and less prosperous.”

Secretary of state Marco Rubio said at a year-end presser last week that he had delivered a new list of hundreds of diplomats nominated for promotion after the Trump administration adjusted the criteria and panels of those overseeing the promotion process.

That was part of an effort by the administration to target “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” policies supporting minority candidates within various government agencies.

Powerful White House officials like the deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller have sought to install allies in the state department to execute goals of limiting immigration into the United States. The promotion of diplomats aligned with the current White House administration would further politicise the diplomatic corps, AFSA said.