President Donald Trump has plans to revamp the State Department, and his administration's efforts have left the staff demoralized, according to former officials from both Democrat and Republican administrations, The Hill is reporting.
"My suspicion is that within the White House, particularly amongst the nationalist faction… that this seems to actually be a concerted effort to diminish the role of the State Department in U.S. foreign policy and hamper its abilities to pursue policies that would be considered overly globalist," Stewart Patrick, policy planning staff member during George W. Bush administration, told The Hill.
"They also don't see much use, frankly, in diplomacy" and the Trump administration's view is that "development and foreign assistance is basically pouring money down a rat hole."
Rob Berschinski, deputy assistant secretary of state during the Obama administration told The Hill: "People are both flabbergasted and really distraught at what they think is a department being undermined from the inside."
A possible restructuring could merge the State Department with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency that the secretary of state guides.
"My one sense is that the knives are out for USAID in the White House," Gordon Adams, national security and foreign policy budget official during the Clinton administration, told the website.
"It is top-to-bottom a dismissing of the State Department. This is about the most systematic dismantling of a federal department that I've witnessed."
Trump administration plans have included a State Department budget cut of nearly 30 percent and a House committee proposal addressed that cut Wednesday, proposing a 14 percent cut.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has expressed his disapproval with the administration's hiring for senior positions in his area, and he appears to have lost favor within the administration to Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, The Hill notes.
Tillerson commissioned a study among State Department and USAID employees and one common theme in the report said employees believe there is "absence of a clear vision of the future."
A White House official told The Hill: "The President was elected to shake up Washington, not continue business as usual. He's promised to spend more at home and less abroad and his budget reflects that."
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