Democrats Urge Trump To Reverse Recall Of Nearly 30 Ambassadors

WASHINGTON, December 24 (Reuters) – Democratic senators called on the President Donald Trump A statement issued Wednesday to reverse the recall of nearly 30 career ambassadors warned the move leaves a dangerous leadership vacuum that allows rivals such as Russia and China to expand their influence.

The Trump administration has recently issued instructions to career diplomats serving in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. go back to washington Ensuring that U.S. missions abroad reflect “America First” priorities.

The State Department did not specify how or when the ambassadors would be replaced. A senior department official said Monday that recalls are “a standard process in every administration.”

But the 10 Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who wrote the letter to Trump said the sudden mass recalls were an “unprecedented move” that no other administration has taken since Congress created the modern Foreign Service a century ago and that there are no plans to replace the envoys with qualified candidates.

The dismissals bring the number of vacant US ambassadorial posts to more than 100, about half of all such posts worldwide, the senators said in their letter seen by Reuters. They said that 80 positions were vacant before the decision.

“While more than 100 U.S. embassies without senior leadership await a new U.S. ambassador, China, Russia, and others will maintain regular communication with foreign leaders that we will effectively abandon, allowing our adversaries to expand their reach and influence to limit or even harm U.S. interests,” the Democrats wrote in their letter. he said.

The White House referred questions about the letter to the State Department. A spokesman for the department did not answer questions about the contents of the letter but accused Democrats of blocking ambassador appointments.

“Senate Democrats engaged in unprecedented obstruction of President Trump’s nominees, including ambassadors and other top diplomats,” the spokesperson said.

Republicans control the Senate changed the rules It was in response to what Democrats said in September that Trump’s picks had slowed his placement in many government positions.

In Wednesday’s letter, Democratic senators, including Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Chris Murphy and others, offered examples of how Washington will lack a high-level U.S. presence in key places as Beijing and Moscow advance.

From the Indo-Pacific to Africa and the Balkans, as well as Latin America, Washington will be on the back foot against China’s expanding economic reach, the senators said. Recall leaves US without top asset more than half of the countries In sub-Saharan Africa.

“These ambassadors have demonstrated their commitment to faithfully implementing the policies of administrations of both parties for decades,” the senators said. “We demand that you immediately reverse this decision before it further damages America’s standing in the world.”

Political appointees leave their posts when a new administration takes office, but career diplomats, while serving at the will of the president, are generally considered bipartisan and usually serve three to four years in their overseas assignments regardless of a change of government.

But Trump has long been suspicious of the bureaucracy and has repeatedly promised to “clean up the deep state” by firing bureaucrats he deems disloyal and installing loyalists in senior roles.

In February, Trump instructed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revamp the U.S. foreign service to ensure faithful implementation of the Republican president’s foreign policy.

Trump administration in July fired more As Washington grapples with multiple crises on the world stage, 1,300 State Department diplomats and officials: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the nearly two-year-old Gaza conflict and the Middle East on edge due to high tensions between Israel and Iran.

The department’s U.S. workforce reductions totaled nearly 3,000 people after deferred resignations and early retirements; this figure accounted for more than 11% of the total foreign and civil service civil servants.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Edmund Klamann)