Is President Donald Trump remaking the U.S. Foreign Service, the career diplomats who staff U.S. embassies? By the terms of his own order, yes. A February 2025 executive order told the secretary of state to "reform the Foreign Service" to ensure "faithful and effective implementation of the President's foreign policy agenda." The State Department has since laid off hundreds of Foreign Service employees, rewritten the entrance exam and new-officer training, and changed how diplomats are promoted. A department official told the Daily Signal the department is "trying to fundamentally shift how the Foreign Service works, replacing an expectation of promotion with a merit-based system." The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the diplomats' union, called the appointment of a new employee appeals board without the union's approval "another warning sign of further politicization of the federal workforce." This is an explainer: Profoundd's searches of State Department releases, AFSA statements and federal-workforce news, last rechecked October 30, found no Foreign Service policy announcement dated October 24 to 30.
The order and its reasons
The order, signed February 12, 2025, says officers carrying out foreign policy "must under Article II do so under the direction and authority of the President" and that "Failure to faithfully implement the President's policy is grounds for professional discipline, including separation." Announcing a reorganization in April 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told staff, "We cannot win the battle for the 21st century with bloated bureaucracy," the Associated Press reported. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the Foreign Relations chairman, said Trump and Rubio "have proposed a vision to remake the State Department for this century"; Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said the plan "raises grave concerns" about U.S. global leadership.
A March 2025 order ended collective bargaining at the department; a White House fact sheet said labor law "enables hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management." AFSA, which says the order stripped bargaining rights from 97 percent of the employees it represents, sued on separation-of-powers, First Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act grounds; as of AFSA's October 7 update, the case awaits an appeals court decision, with a lower court's injunction against the order on hold.
The layoffs
In July 2025 the department sent layoff notices, called reductions in force (RIFs), to nearly 1,350 employees, mostly civil servants; the Foreign Service members among them were temporarily assigned to domestic posts. A federal judge in San Francisco put a December attempt to finalize the Foreign Service layoffs on hold, but in January U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that the department did not have to rescind the notices because those layoffs fell outside the protections Congress had approved. On May 5, 2026, the department told nearly 250 Foreign Service employees they were officially separated, Federal News Network reported.
Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the cuts were "thoughtfully designed to facilitate a more efficient, faster, and effective America First diplomacy." AFSA said the department "has never adequately explained why it is removing experienced Foreign Service professionals with critical skills while simultaneously hiring new personnel." Under Secretary for Management Jason Evans had told the House in March that a hiring halt under a previous administration "created a hole in the middle ranks of our service" that new hires are meant to fill. The 2027 budget request plans for about 11,000 Foreign Service employees, down from more than 14,000 before this administration, Federal News Network reported.
A new exam and orientation
An April 1, 2026 fact sheet said the department had overhauled the entrance exam, the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT), which Reuters reported was first revised in October 2025, adding "questions on American history and logical reasoning while eliminating those intended to test alignment with the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda," and that A-100, the orientation course for new officers, now "includes lectures on diplomatic history and America First foreign policy," replacing exercises such as a blindfolded bucket toss. AFSA took issue with the claim that the old exam tested ideology and said, "We see a far greater risk that political ideology could now be introduced into the selection process." AFSA President John Dinkelman, a former A-100 instructor who had himself received a layoff notice, told CNN "it is not normal to inject what are so blatantly administration-specific agenda items into orientation," though he said questions the Daily Caller had cited, such as how many of an applicant's immediate friends "have a first language other than English," could be expected on past exams.
Promotions and the senior ranks
In July 2025 the department added "fidelity" to its promotion criteria, including contributions to "protecting and promoting executive power," Federal News Network reported. The previous criteria, used from 2022 to 2025, included diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. AFSA said prioritizing fidelity "risks eroding the very foundation of an apolitical Foreign Service." Pigott told CNN in May that "the recalibration of the employee performance review system has been under discussion for years and is long overdue."
In August the Daily Signal, citing department officials, reported that about 200 Senior Foreign Service positions overseas, in the diplomats' top career ranks, had been downgraded to widen eligibility for merit-based promotion; Pigott said the goal is senior ranks "populated by the people who are best equipped to advance American interests, rather than simply those who have accumulated the most years of service." Nine current and former staff, most unnamed, gave the Washington Sun a different account on October 21: that the department is trying to force out its most senior officers by freezing or downgrading senior jobs, while promoting new staff whom those employees regard as more politically loyal. AFSA counts about 3,500 Foreign Service departures since January 2025, the Sun reported, adding that a majority were in the senior ranks or one level below.
Pigott told the Sun that Rubio "values candid insights from patriotic Americans who have chosen to serve their country" but "What we will not tolerate is people using their positions to actively undermine the duly elected president's objectives." The Sun's account rests mainly on anonymous sources and the union's count. Neither outlet published underlying personnel records; the Daily Signal's figures came from a department official.
October: an appeals board, a hiring pilot
In August the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the Foreign Service Grievance Board, an independent panel that can reverse firings and discipline, cannot constitutionally have the final say: the board "may continue to hear grievances as before," but the secretary of state "will retain final decision-making authority." That is the administration's own lawyers advising the administration, not a court ruling. AFSA said August 24 that the opinion turns the board "from a body charged with rendering final decisions into an advisory body."
After the board members' terms expired September 30, Rubio appointed 14 new members, more than a third from the Ben Franklin Fellowship, a group founded in 2024 that says it promotes "meritocracy — not DEI and wokeism — in diplomatic service," Government Executive reported. The law requires members to be chosen from "nominees approved in writing by the agencies" and by each agency's union, if it has one. AFSA, which says it still represents employees at several of those agencies, said October 1 that it was shut out: "Public servants deserve a fair hearing. That starts with a board their employer cannot handpick on its own." AFSA is "considering all legal options"; Government Executive's report included no State Department response to that legal claim. The fellowship's chairman, Phillip Linderman, called any suggestion that the appointees will not handle grievances professionally "because some are affiliated with a conservative foreign policy group" absurd.
On October 9 the department said it would soon take applications for its Lateral Entry Pilot Program, "a congressionally mandated program" for mid-career hires, including foreign-assistance experts; candidates must pass the FSOT, whose current testing window closes October 31. AFSA said October 15 that after dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and "firing its 2,000 experienced Foreign Service professionals," State should offer those officers "a path back at grades that recognize their experience and prior service, without unnecessary entrance exams."
Neither AFSA's statement nor Federal News Network's October 16 report on it included a department response. In July a spokesperson said of State's own laid-off staff that "There are no restrictions on employees who were separated as part of a reduction in force applying for new positions within the department, and they would be subject to the same process as other candidates." In March, though, Evans told the House that the laid-off Foreign Service employees would not be eligible to compete for vacancies, saying, "I don't believe we have plans to do that at this point," and laid-off applicants told Federal News Network they had heard nothing back.
What Congress is doing
The Foreign Service Modernization Act (H.R. 9086), from Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast (R-Fla.), is what its sponsors call the first comprehensive review of the Foreign Service Act since 1980; it would give ambassadors more authority, create a pilot Diplomatic Reserve Corps and widen pathways for veterans. "We are going to make sure the State Department hires the most qualified, not the most woke," Mast said. The committee approved it 38 to 2 in June, AFSA reported; the House passed it by voice vote on September 16, and it was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the next day. AFSA called it "a true bipartisan compromise" but warned that unless more outside assignments open up, making a tour at another agency a consideration for promotion into the senior ranks "is a recipe for chaos, even with exceptions."
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and five Democratic cosponsors introduced the Protecting America's Diplomatic Workforce Act (H.R. 9728) on July 16 to set rules for future layoffs; Bera said the 2025 dismissals "lacked the transparency, justification, and careful planning that decisions of this magnitude demand."
Documented versus claimed
Government documents and statements establish most of the changes; the senior-rank downgrades rest on the department's own account. Whether the changes restore merit to a corps that rewarded seniority, as the department says, or politicize a nonpartisan service and push out experienced diplomats, as AFSA says, will show in who is hired and promoted.
This article reflects reporting through Friday, October 30, 2026. Sources: the White House, executive order of February 12, 2025 and collective-bargaining fact sheet, March 2025; the Associated Press via Alaska's News Source, April 22, 2025; Reuters via Yahoo News, September 5, 2025; State Department fact sheet, April 1, 2026; State Department careers pages on the Lateral Entry Pilot Program (October 9) and the FSOT testing window; Federal News Network, July 3, 2025, March 18, 2026, May 5, July 10 and October 16; CNN, April 3 and May 16; the Daily Signal, August 27; the Washington Sun, October 21; Government Executive, October 2; the Justice Department, August 21; 22 U.S.C. 4135; AFSA statements of August 24, October 1 and October 15, its August town-hall recap and its lawsuit tracker; House Foreign Affairs Committee releases of June 2 and June 10; Rep. Mike Lawler, September 16; H.R. 9086 as referred in the Senate; Rep. Ami Bera, July 16, and H.R. 9728.
