Down with diplomats, down with aid
In past years, on the first Friday in May, a memorial service has been held to honor several hundred people who gave their lives in the service of this country.
Instead of doing that today, the Trump administration has taken its war on professionalism to a new low and once again demonstrated its contempt for those serving in government who aren’t motivated by greed, right-wing extremism or pure self-promotion.
The occasion is called Foreign Service Day, and for the first time in many years, it will not be held at the Department of State. It remains to be seen whether even an official statement on it will be issued.
Trump doesn’t care
Usually marked with speeches and remembrances, a key part of the occasion was always commemorating the 321 State Department employees who died while serving their country abroad. It also honored the sacrifice of others serving in our embassies, especially the
102 people who died while working for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The names of the deceased are listed on plaques that are on display in the two main entrances of the State Department. Today, the plaques serve mainly to remind employees and visitors entering the building just how little the leadership of the State Department
cares about the people who work there.
Even as late as last year’s Foreign Service Day, the State Department pretended it cared as it had the Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau preside over the ceremonies. His remarks were at least heartfelt. He grew up in the Foreign Service because his father
was an immigrant who became a career diplomat and rose to the rank of ambassador.
He was interrupted twice, however, by attendees wanting to know how America’s development and humanitarian assistance around the world was going to continue when USAID, in the words of our shadow president Elon Musk, was being fed into a woodchipper.
This year, to spare themselves the embarrassment of trying to defend the fact that the gutting of USAID is causing death and misery throughout the poorest parts of the world, the State Department is ignoring the day honoring its employees.
In testimony before Congress last May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted no one had died because of the cuts to USAID’s budget. At that point, it was estimated the death toll had already reached 300,000.
Now it is estimated that in the first year of the dismemberment of USAID, reduced funding for disease prevention programs cost the lives of 762,000 people, two-thirds of whom were children.
At this point, some readers are thinking “So what? Isn’t this just a lot of carping by the deep state?” The “deep state” is the simple-minded, name-calling tactic used in the administration’s war against professionalism and the effort to replace it with cronyism
and ideological loyalty tests.
Trump’s war on diplomacy
Trump’s war on professional diplomacy matters. Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense once told Congress: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”
He recognized that without the soft power of effective diplomacy, the only implements left in the foreign policy toolbox are the hard power of military action and economic sanctions.
Don’t tell the Secretary of War that. He thinks there is no international problem that can’t be solved with a bomb.
One crucial element of soft power is foreign assistance, not to mention that anyone with the slightest trace of ethical principles would recognize that the richest country in the world should help the poorest ones.
The State Department, however, now argues that foreign assistance can be carried out by making deals directly with foreign governments and that there is no need for a bunch of bureaucrats worried about effective implementation and oversight. The only thing
that approach will accomplish is to maximize the opportunities for corruption on both ends of the deal.
The contempt for government employees displayed by the Trump administration is not new. The president claimed that USAID was run by “a bunch of radical lunatics” parroting Musk’s deranged rant about it being a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists.”
And then there is Russell Vought, who runs the Office of Management and Budget. He once said that when government employees wake up in the morning “We want them to not want to go to work. We want to put them in trauma.”
Is that a management style designed to attract and keep the best people? That doesn’t happen without providing people a career with promotion based on merit and a realistic chance for advancement.
Trump’s failure
Fifteen months into his second term, Trump has nominated only 79 people to be ambassadors. That leaves about 60% of our embassies around the world, and 90% of the ones in Africa, with no ambassador.
Only six of the 79 nominees are career diplomats. In a normal presidency, they would be close to 70% of the total. And most of Trump’s political-appointee ambassadors are so laughingly unqualified they are a threat to national security.
But who needs ambassadors when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, can cruise the world solving every international problem. And also picking up more cash from oil monarchies for his private equity firm. Thanks to his government service, Jared is now a billionaire,
a fact that must bring a big smile to the grifter-in-chief’s orange face.
Dennis Jett, former American ambassador to Mozambique and Peru, was a professor of international affairs at Penn State University. A contributing writer for the Post-Gazette editorial page, he writes every other Friday.
His previous article was “Israel
and its Arabs: Separate but equal.” He has enjoyed writing for the Post Gazette and will continue to express his opinion on Substack at
Dennis Jett.
First Published: May 1, 2026