For Immediate Release
July 11, 2025
Contact: Nadja Ruzica, Deputy Director of Communications and Outreach | Phone #: (240) 381-4663 | ruzica@afsa.org

Washington, D.C. – At a moment of great global instability—with war raging in Ukraine, conflict between Israel and Iran, and authoritarian regimes testing the boundaries of international order—the United States has chosen to gut its frontline diplomatic workforce. We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.

In less than six months, the U.S. has shed at least 20 percent of its diplomatic workforce through shuttering of institutions and forced resignations. Losing more diplomatic expertise at this critical global moment is a catastrophic blow to our national interests.

The Foreign Service is a unique organization with rank in person and an “up-or-out” system. There were clear, institutional mechanisms available to address excess staffing, if that had been the goal. Instead, these layoffs are untethered from merit or mission. They target diplomats not for how they’ve served or the skills they have, but for where they happen to be assigned. That is not reform.

Diplomats are not faceless bureaucrats. They are America’s forward presence, serving in war zones, evacuating citizens, negotiating for the release of detained Americans, and steadying allies in turbulent times. Like military personnel, they move every two to three years, serving wherever America needs representation, often in dangerous and difficult places. Their mobility is a strategic asset. Firing them based solely on their current office location discards that asset and damages our credibility abroad.

This decision sends the wrong signal to allies and adversaries alike: that the United States is pulling back from the world stage. As allies look to the U.S. for reassurance and rivals test for weakness, the administration has chosen to sideline the very professionals best equipped to navigate this moment. Meanwhile, countries like China continue expanding their diplomatic reach and influence.

We stand with the entire State Department workforce and with every American who understands that professional, non-partisan diplomacy is not expendable. It is essential. And we will not stop fighting to defend it.

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) is the professional association and labor union of the men and women of the United States Foreign Service.