It's no secret that President Trump isn't a huge fan of Washington's more traditional foreign diplomatic institutions, and the United States Foreign Service is no exception.
The Trump administration has done extensive damage to the State Department, several people told GQ, and it might be a long time before it can recover. Per GQ, previously unpublished data from the American Foreign Service Association shows the foreign service losing people at an alarming clip — in the first two years of Trump's presidency nearly half of the State Department's Career Ministers retired or were pushed out during the transition, while about 20 percent of its Minister Counselors (the next level down) also walked out the door. There aren't numbers for this year yet, but one ex-foreign service officer mentioned a rapidly-growing Facebook page geared toward helping diplomats transition to the private sector.
And it's not just veterans who left. A lot of earlier-career officers slated to take over leadership positions have headed elsewhere, as well, and they can't be replaced at the rate they're leaving. "What's striking is both the decapitation of the State Department and the loss of people who should have been the next leadership of the department," said a foreign service officer who was reportedly forced out. "It's a hollowing out of the foreign service. You can't replace those mid-level people easily at the numbers at which they're losing them. That will take a generation to rebuild." Read more at GQ.
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