The U.S. State Department began firing more than 1,300 employees via email on Friday as a part of the Trump administration's plans to downsize government and cut back on alleged "bloat" and inefficiencies. The move has come under criticism from current and former diplomats who say the cuts will degrade America’s standing in the world and curb U.S. soft power.
The diplomats hit hardest hailed from the offices that Secretary of State Marco Rubio eliminated in his sweeping reorganization of the department, the most far-reaching in decades, including the Office of Global Women's Issues and the department's diversity and inclusion programs. But cuts also impacted employees working on highly volatile issues, including Syria, a brittle Middle Eastern country emerging from decades of authoritarian rule, and senior officials in charge of chemical weapons issues and multilateral nuclear diplomacy.
"They cut key experts on nuclear testing, nuclear verification and efforts to end the production of weapons-grade fissile material," said Alex Bell, a former State Department official and current president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "These cuts will only serve to increase the nuclear threats facing this nation."
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