The State Department has advised staffers it will begin issuing thousands of layoff notices from today as part of Donald Trump’s war against the ‘Deep State’. The sweeping reorganization comes after Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the ‘bloated’ bureaucracy and ‘radical political ideology’ had to be eliminated.

The layoffs come only days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump ‘s executive order allowing mass layoffs across the federal government to proceed, despite ongoing legal challenges. The ruling, which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denounced as releasing the president’s ‘wrecking ball, ‘ sent shockwaves through Washington and set the stage for what may become the largest government downsizing in modern US history.

Now, with legal barriers falling away, Trump’s agenda to ‘deconstruct the administrative state’ and reduce the size of the federal government is accelerating, starting with the State Department where nearly 1,800 positions are being slashed. But critics say the scale of cuts floated at the State Department will ‘leave the US with limited tools to engage as a leader on the world stage during this critical juncture’, making it hard for many offices to carry out their missions. The State Department will begin layoffs as early as Friday as it seeks to cut the size of its US workforce by about 15 percent.

Michael Rigas, the department’s deputy secretary for management and resources, said in a statement that select staffers would be informed if they were being laid off and described it as being part of the department’s biggest reorganization in decades. ‘Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force. First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States,’ he said. ‘Once notifications have taken place, the Department will enter the final stage of its reorganization and focus its attention on delivering results-driven diplomacy,’ he added.

Rubio said officials took ‘a very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused.’ ‘It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,’ he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he’s attending the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. ‘Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.’ He said some of the cuts will be unfilled positions or those that are about to be vacant because an employee took an early retirement.

The impact is expected to be felt most heavily in Washington, where hundreds of seasoned diplomats and civil service staff are now bracing for pink slips. The American Foreign Service Association estimates that around 700 Foreign Service officers based in the US will be cut, along with a larger number of civil service employees – making this one of the largest workforce reductions in the department’s modern history. In late May, the State Department notified Congress of an updated reorganization plan, proposing cuts to programs beyond what had been revealed earlier by Rubio as well as an 18 percent reduction of staff in the U.S., even higher than the 15 percent initially floated in April.

Rigas’ statement said the department is aiming to ‘focus resources on policy priorities and eliminate redundant functions, empowering our people while increasing accountability.’ The State Department is planning to eliminate some divisions tasked with oversight of America’s two-decade involvement in Afghanistan, including an office focused on resettling Afghan nationals who worked alongside the US military. It also intends to eliminate programs related to refugees and immigration, as well as human rights and democracy promotion. Although overseas staffing remains intact for now, the cuts follow Trump’s earlier elimination of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – a major pillar of America’s global aid apparatus that employed over 10,000 people worldwide.

Diplomats warn the gutting of both agencies in a single year could cripple US influence abroad, especially as conflicts intensify in the Middle East and Ukraine, and China expands its global footprint. The American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents diplomats, urged the State Department last month to hold off on job cuts. 

Notices for a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate positions altogether, ‘should be a last resort,’ association President Tom Yazdgerdi said. ‘Disrupting the Foreign Service like this puts national interests at risk – and Americans everywhere will bear the consequences.’ While the administration is framing the cuts as streamlining, critics say the real effect is a hollowing out of US diplomacy with human rights, refugee resettlement, and war crimes offices facing extinction under the restructuring.