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       WASHINGTON: Presi-dent Donald Trump’s top diplomat Marco Rubio unveiled a restructuring of the US State Depart-ment on Tuesday that will cut positions and scale back human rights offices, saying the “bloated” organisation was ideologically out of sync with the administration.

       Rubio billed the plan as a major shake-up in the State Department, long a bete noire for many conservatives, although the outline was less drastic than drafts that have circulated — including one of which would have virtually wiped out day-to-day diplomacy in Africa.

       “The Department is bloated, bureaucratic and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great-power competition,” Rubio said in a statement, referring to US rivalry with China.

       “The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.”

       One key change will be eliminating a division in charge of “civilian security, democracy and human rights”. It will be replaced by a new office of “coordination for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs”, which will absorb functions of the US Agency for International Develop-ment — gutted at the start of the Trump administration with the elimination of more than 80 per cent of programmes.

       Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2025