President’s Views

BY TOM YAZDGERDI

I had wanted to devote this column to service and duty as the new administration came into office. I looked forward to welcoming the new Secretary of State and, as is customary, gathering with colleagues in the C Street lobby to show our support.

We did do that, and I had the honor of escorting Secretary Marco Rubio and Mrs. Jeanette Rubio to the memorial plaques commemorating Foreign Service members who gave their lives while carrying out the foreign policy of the United States. The Secretary laid flowers to remember these brave men and women and reflect on the unique challenges and dangers of our profession.

Secretary Rubio offered inspiring remarks, saying that it is “an extraordinary honor and a privilege to serve in this role, to be here; frankly, to oversee the greatest, the most effective, the most talented, the most experienced diplomatic corps in the history of the world.” He said he wants “the Department of State to be at the center of how America engages the world.”

But as this issue goes to press in mid-February, we are in the midst of a chaotic and highly disruptive effort to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), AFSA’s second-largest member agency. This has sown fear, confusion, and frustration for the entire workforce, including more than 1,800 USAID officers and their families serving abroad, who are struggling to understand what is happening and why.

It is right and proper for any administration to work to ensure that government programs reflect their view of U.S. national interests and funding needed to protect and defend those interests. AFSA did expect a focus on downsizing the federal workforce, including those at USAID.

What we appear to be seeing, however, is the wholesale upending of the vital role foreign assistance plays to save people from famine and disease, develop economies and self-sufficiency, and, in so doing, engender goodwill for the United States.

Most people don’t know that most development assistance money is spent right here in the U.S. The foodstuffs that USAID buys to feed the starving does not come from foreign sources but from American farmers. The life-saving programs, including the highly successful and bipartisan President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), largely come from American sources and are serviced by American implementers.

AFSA has a statutory right to notice and an opportunity to negotiate changes to our members’ conditions of employment. Yet, we were given no notice of these major and unprecedented initiatives, and our requests to meet have gone unheeded. Based on these factors and the speed with which these changes are being implemented, AFSA felt obliged to take legal action to protect our members and their families.

We hoped the administration would listen to the voices of the Foreign Service workforce about the dire effects of the U.S. acting impulsively to end so many vital programs at once. Our members are understandably concerned that what is happening at USAID might be replicated across Foreign Service agencies, leading to a loss of U.S. global leadership and ceding the diplomatic and development field to our rivals, particularly China. Along with diplomacy and our military, development assistance is the third side of the triangle that protects and defends America’s interests abroad.

I want to close by emphasizing that both AFSA and the Foreign Service are nonpartisan. AFSA neither endorses presidential candidates nor tells the U.S. president what he should do on foreign policy issues. The Foreign Service exists to carry out the foreign policy initiatives of the president, regardless of party.

We didn’t join just for a paycheck but rather out of a sense of patriotism and duty. I remember the immense pride I had joining the Foreign Service in October 1991, of representing the United States abroad. We ask in return to be treated with dignity and respect and for our knowledge to be utilized to advance America’s security and prosperity.

Please let me know your thoughts at yazdgerdi@afsa.org or member@afsa.org.