Trump’s State Department Cuts Endanger Americans; Prioritize Militarism

July 11, 2025 – In response to the Trump Administration’s massive cuts to the State Department’s workforce, Center for International Policy Executive Vice President Matt Duss issued the following statement:

“Today’s announcement betrays a fundamental disregard for, and ignorance of, the sources of our country’s safety and prosperity. Gutting the State Department hobbles our ability to advance fundamental security, economic and democratic interests in a time of growing threats to life and liberty for Americans and billions around the planet. It also shows a shameful disrespect for professional diplomats who have worked tirelessly, and whose families have endured considerable hardship, to make our country safer.

“This is Donald Trump’s latest assault on government functions critical to the well-being of everyday people in the United States and abroad. Just as staffing and program cuts have already contributed to the preventable deaths of dozens of Americans in flood-prone areas and the tens of thousands of lives lost overseas by shuttering US aid projects fighting disease, today’s action will inevitably incur an enormous human cost.

“The hollowing out of the State Department is also further evidence that Trump’s pledge to be a president who ends wars was false. Coupled with his administration’s dramatic increase in military spending, slashing diplomacy makes clear that Trump is prioritizing and compounding the foreign policy establishment’s addiction to militarism.

“Opponents of this move must not merely criticize or take symbolic steps to resist them – they should commit to a new, much bolder vision for a United States that advances diplomacy and cooperation over conflict. What comes next must not be an effort to merely rebuild the U.S. foreign policy apparatus that Trump is destroying, but to remake it with a new mindset that prioritizes human security for all Americans and people around the world.”