Trump is causing generational damage to American diplomacy
By Ken Brill - July 29, 2025
In
his second inaugural address, President Trump announced he would build
“the strongest military the world has ever seen.” He followed up by
sending Congress in June a record $1.01 trillion Defense Department
budget for fiscal year 2026.
Trump also said in his inaugural address that he wanted to be remembered as “a peacemaker and a unifier.”
But
later the same day he signed an executive order that led to the
dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and began
an ongoing process of diminishing America’s diplomatic capacity to
advance America’s global interests, prevent conflict and promote
peaceful resolution of international problems.
A nation’s
military capacity is easy to understand. It consists of troops, weapons,
training, logistics and military bases. Trump’s $1 trillion defense
budget will strengthen America’s already considerable military capacity.
But to be successful diplomatically, America requires diplomatic
capacity, which has three concrete dimensions and one intangible.
The
concrete dimensions are: people, presence and programs. The intangible
dimension is something the recently deceased Harvard University scholar
Joe Nye called “soft power.”
Skilled and
experienced diplomats are America’s greatest diplomatic asset, but they
are made, not born. Acquiring language and other professional skills and
knowledge require years of training and hands-on experience.
America’s
Foreign Service and Civil Service diplomats represent a significant
investment in U.S. national security and the protection of citizens
abroad. America needs the best diplomats to compete with other
countries’, particularly China’s, best diplomats.
Yet, earlier
this month, the Trump administration announced the firing of 1,300 State
Department officials, which follows the firing of virtually all USAID
staff. This amounts to throwing away many years of investment in an
American national security asset.
In
diplomacy, being there matters. Diplomatic presence consists of
America’s embassies in global capitals and consulates in major cities
important to significant U.S. interests.
Embassies and
consulates are the eyes, ears and voice for America on the ground
internationally. They protect American interests and citizens, keep
Washington informed of developments, and build support for American
policy priorities.
Until recently, America had the most robust
diplomatic presence internationally. Now China does. Nonetheless, Trump
is planning cuts to America’s overseas diplomatic presence, which will
only help our adversaries.
Diplomacy
is not just talking, it is also making things happen. Diplomatic
programs are tools that support U.S. strategic priorities — and those
programs change as administrations change.
Such programs range
from humanitarian and development assistance and support to U.S. farmers
and companies in developing international markets for their products,
to leveraging the United Nations and other international organizations
to achieve U.S. goals.
They also include international radio
stations like the Voice of America that bring the truth about America
and the world to people whose governments lie to them.
Diplomatic
programs represent approximately 1 percent of the federal budget, but
yield outsized returns to U.S. national security.
In dismantling
or slashing funding for diplomatic programs like Food for Peace, Voice
of America and funding for international organizations via the United
Nations (where others pay 78 percent of the costs for U.S.-shaped
agendas), Trump is taking tools out of the U.S. national security
toolbox that will hurt his and future administrations’ abilities to
achieve their international goals.
Trump is also undermining the
intangible soft power dimension of America’s diplomatic capacity.
America’s global alliances testify to its predominance of global soft
power. Nye defined soft power as “the ability to obtain preferred
outcomes by attraction rather than coercion or payment.”
Others
wanted to work with the U.S. on shared objectives and share the burden
of doing so. But that is changing and, as Nye said before his death, and
as recent international polls indicate, under Trump, America is
shedding soft power, which can only help our adversaries and
competitors.
In undermining America’s diplomatic capacity, Trump
is also undercutting America’s military capacity. America’s military and
diplomats work as a team, with each complementing the other.
As
Trump’s first secretary of Defense, James Mattis, said when he was the
commander of U.S. Central Command, “If you don’t fully fund the State
Department, then I need to buy more ammunition.”
Diplomats
help prevent conflict and, when conflict occurs, diplomats help end it
and sustain the peace. Whether in Europe, the Middle East or Asia, the
military counts on U.S. diplomacy to help create supportive coalitions.
For
example, no matter the size of the Defense Department’s budget, there
can be no successful defense of Taiwan without robust and sustained
diplomacy in Asia and beyond before, during and after a conflict.
Diplomacy
is about getting others to help achieve America’s goal for a world that
supports U.S. prosperity and security. The Trump administration has a
number of international priorities, not one of which can be resolved by
the U.S. or its military force alone.
If
Trump hopes to achieve any lasting, positive international legacy, he
needs to end the radical Project 2025-driven attack on America’s
diplomatic capacity and begin a systematic review of how to structure
and use the nation’s diplomatic capacity to achieve his international
goals.
A good first step would be to immediately rescind the
mass firing of American diplomats and assess how existing diplomatic
programs can be reshaped to serve Trump’s goals.
If Trump
harnesses America’s diplomatic capacity to engage with others and shape
the global agenda, he may, despite everything, be remembered as a
“peacemaker.”