14 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Thomas Renard, director of The Hague–based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, told Al Jazeera: “What we are seeing now in the United States is that counterterrorism has been completely politicized.” He added: “The United States, with this summit and with its strategy, is creating, actually, a blind spot about far-right terrorist threats, as that threat is strongly anchored and rooted in the United States.” A related 100-page report released by the department on July 20, “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” alleges that a decades-long Cuban influence campaign has infiltrated the U.S. government and fueled domestic unrest, citing the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground, and antifa as products of a Cuban-built revolutionary network. Secretary Rubio, who has long advocated for the ouster of Cuba’s communist government, said its “sprawling intelligence and ideological network helped to build the far left” in the United States and the wider hemisphere. The report’s characterization of the threat has been described by critics as far more dire than assessments historically offered by U.S. intelligence officials and diplomats, and its release has revived speculation about the Trump administration’s plans in relation to Cuba. USAID Closure Has Cost Hundreds of Thousands of Lives A June 4 interim staff analysis from Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Democrats found that the Trump administration’s shutdown of USAID led to widespread humanitarian and economic harm both abroad and at home. Citing research from Boston University, the report estimated that 600,000 people—two-thirds of them children— died in the year following USAID’s closure as a result of halted foreign assistance. The analysis also pointed to a worsening Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, a resurgence of HIV and malaria in countries that had previously curbed the diseases, and a rollback in global maternal and reproductive health care. The report further found that the retreat of U.S. humanitarian assistance has allowed Russia and the People’s Republic of China to expand their influence in regions once served by USAID, and that thousands of Americans lost jobs as a result of the agency’s closure. State Moves Against ICC Secretary of State Marco Rubio on July 13 announced a State Department effort to press other nations to reject the The Price of Patronage 50 Years Ago The State Department is bulging with highly trained professionals who are retiring prematurely because the posts they should be filling are occupied by beneficiaries of the political payoff system. —Clayton Fritchey in “A Chance to Stop the Embassy ‘Auction’” in the September 1976 edition of the FSJ.
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