Last week the State Department was feeling isolated, underutilized, and under threat.
Senior state department officials who would normally be called to the White House for their views on key policy issues, are not being asked their opinion. They have resorted to asking foreign diplomats, who now have better access to President Trump’s immediate circle of advisers, what new decisions are imminent.
And this week the State Department is feeling more of the same.
The Trump administration in its first month has largely benched the State Department from its long-standing role as the preeminent voice of U.S. foreign policy, curtailing public engagement and official travel and relegating Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to a mostly offstage role.
Why do you need a State Department anyway? Can those guys write a treaty in 140 characters or less? No? Then leave it to the real experts. The best brains.
The most visible change at the State Department is the month-long lack of daily press briefings, a fixture since John Foster Dulles was secretary of state in the 1950s.
If the Hoover Administration could get by without daily briefings, then why would Trump need them?
It’s not just those darned long-term experienced diplomats who can speak the language, know the customs, and all those other things that Trump considers worthless. It’s even Trump’s Foggy Bottom man.
Tillerson has also been notably absent from White House meetings with foreign leaders. …
It is still early in Tillerson’s tenure, and former State Department officials, from Republican and Democratic administrations alike, say his performance reflects the disarray in the White House.
Tillerson is a one-trick secretary. Until Trump sends him over to finish his contract with Putin, there’s really not much of a skill set that he can bring to any discussion.
The State Department really has two issues. First, there is no issue on which Trump doesn’t consider himself to be the world’s greatest living authority, so he has no need to call on “so-called experts.” But the even bigger factor is that there’s no one at the State Department he trusts.
Trump already suspects the State Department as the source of many “Trump screws up conversation with foreign leader” leaks. He sees the place as a bunch of former Hillary Clinton associates who want nothing more than to find a way to tweek his orange nose. And since Trump’s been unable to find anyone interested in taking seats at State that he does trust (mostly because the pool of those Trump trusts seems to have been exhausted long before he came close to just staffing the West Wing) that’s not likely to change in a hurry.
The State Department is likely to stay sidelined for a long time to come.