On April 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a proposed “comprehensive reorganization plan” of the US Department of State. The information that he posted online appeared to indicate that, under his plan, an entire branch of America’s diplomatic infrastructure would be cut: the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Civilian Harm, known as “J.” This was the bureau in which this author worked, covering human rights in the Middle East, before resigning in March 2024 over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.
It appears that under Rubio’s proposal, some parts of the J bureau would be moved or their functions taken on by other offices. For example, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) would be renamed the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Religious Freedom, reflecting the absorption of the previously independent Office of International Religious FreedomThe proposed new bureau, along with the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, would be overseen by the Office of the Coordination for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs (F). This office is also charged with administering what little remains of programs administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) after the Trump administration cut 83 percent of its funding and fired nearly all of its staff. Similarly, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), previously under J, would be managed by the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security (T). It is not yet clear how the staff or funding for these bureaus would be affected by the reorganization.
Rubio’s plan envisions cutting other bureaus and offices, including the Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations and the Office of Global Women’s Issues. The Office for Global Criminal Justice, which oversees the US response to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, would no longer exist. Some parts of its mission would be carried out by the Office of the Legal Advisor, but it is so far unknown which aspects would survive, and what would be the Department’s relationship to institutions such as the International Criminal Court. Considering the Trump administration’s general disdain for international organizations, the dissolution of such relationships is likely intentional.
Secretary Rubio described the DRL bureau as “a platform for left-wing activists.”
Secretary Rubio has justified the plan by asserting that “redundant offices will also be removed, and non-statutory programs misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist.” He described the DRL bureau as “a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against ‘anti-woke’ leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes.” This mischaracterization of DRL followed reporting that under Rubio, the Department of State will alter important parts of the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which Congress has mandated since the mid-1970s.
The reports, also known as the Human Rights Reports, follow a standardized format and document the human rights abuses of America’s friends and foes alike. Typically, the leadership tends to publicize the human rights abuses of perceived adversaries while downplaying those of perceived allies. Under the Biden administration, such foes included certain authoritarian governments like Hungary under President Victor Orban, which Biden referred to as a dictatorship, as well as Brazil under the right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro Yet Biden, like many of his predecessors, overlooked abuses by “partner” governments such as Egypt’s, Israel’s, Saudi Arabia’s, and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE). Biden, for example, restored full security assistance to Egypt despite serious human rights concerns. In contrast to Biden, who liked to talk about a distinction between democracies and autocracies, President Donald Trump openly admires many autocratic leaders, including Orban, Bolsonaro, Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the UAE president Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Although Biden was not interested in highlighting human rights abuses by Israel, under his secretary of state Antony Blinken, the DRL bureau at least acknowledged them. For instance, the 2023 Human Rights Report on Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza documented gross violations of human rights by Israel against Palestinians committed during the previous year. Using standardized language, the report listed “significant human rights issues,” such as “arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings,” “enforced disappearance” and “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by government officials.” The report also documented evidence of “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions,” and “serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecution of journalists and censorship.” The report noted that Israeli authorities had taken “no publicly visible steps to identify and punish officials” implicated in alleged violations in Gaza. The report also documented human rights abuses by Palestinian authorities and included a description of the human rights abuses committed by Hamas and others against Israelis during the October 7 attack. The report on Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, in its coverage of a war zone and the human rights abuses that frequently accompany violent conflict, was not unlike the reports for Russia, Ukraine, Sudan, and other countries experiencing war or conflict during 2023.
To be clear, the Department of State’s official acknowledgement of Israel’s human rights abuses in the annual Human Rights Report did not prompt a change in the Biden administration’s policy of nearly unconditional support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Other than a single shipment of 2,000 pound bombs, which the Biden administration paused in a futile attempt to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to invade Rafah, to which a majority of Gaza’s population had fled by May 2024, Biden provided Israel with an unprecedented level of US support. This backing included $17.9 billion worth of military aid sent between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2024.
This support violated US laws that require withholding security assistance on the basis of Israel’s actions in Gaza. For example, the administration falsely asserted in the National Security Memorandum 20 report released on May 10, 2024 that Israel was not blocking US humanitarian aid to Gaza, after Department of State experts concluded that it was. The inclusion of this false claim prompted the resignation of career civil servant Stacy Gilbert, who had worked on the report. The Biden administration also intentionally ignored the Leahy Laws, which bar the provision of US security assistance to units of foreign security forces that have engaged in gross violations of human rights. Despite clear documentation of such violations of human rights by various units of the Israeli military, Secretary Blinken declined to invoke the Leahy Laws, instead concluding that Israel had “done enough” to address gross human rights abuses by soldiers. In the aftermath of October 7, it became clear that the Biden administration would allow the Netanyahu government to commit any atrocity against Palestinians, including genocide, and the United States would continue to support it financially and politically. This is why this author decided to resign.
Yet despite the Biden administration’s record-breaking financial support for Israel, the Department’s documentation of Israeli human rights abuses prompted negative media coverage, which may have informed Rubio’s false description of DRL as “a platform for left-wing activists…to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes.” The Trump administration ordered a reduction in the size and scope of the Human Rights Reports. The 2024 reports, which have not yet been released, reportedly will no longer document harsh prison conditions, government corruption, or restrictions on participation in the political process. Previously, the reports included two examples of a particular human rights violation, but forthcoming reports will have only one. The reports had already gone through a significant revision: the 2023 reports were significantly shorter and more standardized than previous reports.
Rubio has drawn criticism for abandoning principles that he once seemed to hold dear.
By seeking to gut the bureau responsible for promoting human rights and democracy around the world, Rubio has drawn criticism for apparently abandoning principles that he once seemed to hold dear. Tom Malinowski, who served as the assistant secretary for DRL during President Barack Obama’s second term, posted on X that “when I ran the State Department’s human rights bureau, few Senators were more interested in our work than Marco Rubio.” As a senator, Rubio had championed the human rights of Cubans and Venezuelans subjected to abuse by their governments. He had cheered the work of USAID for contributing to America’s soft power. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) also noted Rubio’s change of heart, remarking, “Then-Senator Rubio once asked, ‘If America stops leading, who will fill the vacuum we leave behind?’… What remains unclear is whether Secretary Rubio still shares this view. His current actions suggest that this is no longer the case.” Senators Schatz and Rubio served together on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It is noteworthy that although Rubio oversaw the dismantling of USAID, he preserved aid programs supporting dissidents in Cuba.
The fact that the Trump administration has targeted the part of the Department responsible for promoting human rights and democracy is not surprising. Reports surfaced in February 2025 about the administration’s desire to shrink the size and scope of the Department. Representative Brian Mast, a key Trump ally and chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which oversees the Department, that month described his desire to “purge” State employees for allegedly promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” During his first term, Trump tried to dismantle the J Bureau, first by taking aim at the Office of Global Criminal Justice. Toward the end of his first term, then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo sought to transform how the US government defined human rights by elevating religious rights and property rights as so-called inalienable rights. To this end, in 2019, Pompeo established a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” at the Department, which sought to promote religious freedom as “America’s most fundamental value.” Interestingly, although in his second term Trump has elevated fundamentalist Christians to key roles in his White House, the decision to subsume the Office of International Religious Freedom under the new Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights appears to curtail the influence of that office; alternatively, the Trump administration may prioritize religious freedom over other human rights and democracy issues.
Despite widespread concerns voiced by diplomats and Democratic lawmakers, the proposed changes to the Department’s bureaucracy were less dramatic than many had feared, especially after the New York Times broke a story on April 20 warning of a drastic overhaul. The reporting was based on a draft executive order that proposed eliminating much of America’s diplomatic presence in Africa, a move that quickly drew criticism for ceding the continent—which, by next century could be the world’s most populous—to China and Russia, which already have a robust presence there. The leaked document also suggested eliminating the foreign service exam that would-be diplomats must pass as part of the Department’s rigorous vetting process, instead requiring applicants to demonstrate “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.” Trump had already issued an executive order in February 2025 requiring changes to the foreign service in order to enforce the “faithful and effective implementation” of his foreign policy.
Secretary Rubio denied the reporting, asserting on X that “the NYT has fallen for another hoax.” This post generated some skepticism, as critics noted that Rubio’s previous disavowals had proved inaccurate. For example, Rubio had claimed that the overhaul of USAID would preserve life-saving programs; instead the administration’s sudden revocation of funding swiftly caused deaths, with 25 million more at risk, as those who once depended on USAID now face life-threatening starvation or disease.
When it became clear that the actual scope of the restructuring would be less extensive than anticipated, it raised the question of whether the leaked story had been intended to soften the blow of the actual planned restructuring. More changes are expected, as Rubio pledged to reduce 15 percent of US-based staff and to eliminate 132 of the Department’s 734 offices and bureaus.
The Trump administration’s approach to the rest of the world has been largely combative: alienating allies; threatening to annex the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada; imposing a 10 percent tariff on all imports, while pausing significantly higher tariffs, although delayed for 90 days. By simultaneously driving countries around the world to seek more reliable partners and squandering America’s soft power through the dismantling of institutions like USAID, Trump appears to fundamentally misunderstand how to implement his stated commitment to “America First.” The reduction and demoralization of the US diplomatic corps further cripples the institutions that might have allowed him to rebuild America’s global relationships. Unfortunately, it appears that such reckless destruction is his intention.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Flickr/State Department
