Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday that he is reorganizing the State Department—and that reorganization plan hinges on gutting key offices that have been instrumental in strengthening American diplomacy via diversity.
Among the divisions that will be shut down or severely curtailed are the offices of Global Women’s Issues and the Diversity and Inclusion Office.
In a statement, Rubio branded the changes as part of an effort to create an “America First State Department,” echoing President Donald Trump’s campaign messages and policies that denigrate the contributions of women and minorities.
“Redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist,” Rubio said. He also said the reorganization would reverse “decades of bloat and bureaucracy.”
The Global Women’s Issues office has been used for years to integrate issues pertaining to the rights of women and girls into American foreign policy. In a 2013 statement, then-Secretary of State John Kerry noted, “No country can get ahead if it leaves half of its people behind. This is why the United States believes gender equality is critical to our shared goals of prosperity, stability, and peace, and why investing in women and girls worldwide is critical to U.S. foreign policy.”
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The Diversity and Inclusion office was intended to create a pipeline of diverse candidates that would become a part of the American diplomatic mission. In a 2024 statement, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this was necessary “because recruiting, nurturing, and promoting the most capable workforce possible is critical to our national security.”
The MAGA-fueled announcement is another instance of Rubio, who once called Trump a “con man” who sought to perpetrate “the biggest scam in American political history” during the 2016 election, completely submitting himself to the aspiring autocrat.
Trump has been on a tear since taking office in January, attacking the foundations of American civil rights gains and working to undermine decades of efforts toward equality on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.
When Trump nominated Rubio, the former Florida senator received unanimous support from his colleagues. Everyone present voted to confirm him, including the members of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Since then, as Rubio has completely embraced Trumpism—including praising the abduction of people from American cities and revoking students’ visas for exercising their First Amendment rights—many of those Democrats have expressed regrets.
“I regret to say I regret that vote, because once installed in office, he is essentially abandoning the positions he took here as United States senator,” Sen Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told CNN in February.