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Democratic senators today called on President Donald Trump to reverse his decision to pull out nearly 30 career ambassadors, warning that the move leaves a dangerous leadership vacuum that allows adversaries like Russia and China to expand their influence, Reuters reported.
Donald Trump's administration has ordered career diplomats serving across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America to return to Washington in recent days to ensure that US missions abroad reflect its "America First" priorities.
The State Department did not say how or when it would replace the ambassadors, and a senior State Department official said Monday that the removal is "a standard process in any administration."
However, 10 Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who wrote a letter to Trump, said the sudden mass firing was an "unprecedented action" by any administration since Congress established the modern Foreign Service a century ago, and that there was no plan to replace the envoys with qualified candidates.
The move brings the number of vacant U.S. ambassador positions to more than 100, about half of all such positions in the world, the senators said in a letter first seen by Reuters.
They added that 80 positions were vacant even before this decision.
"As more than 100 U.S. embassies, without senior leadership, await a new ambassador, China, Russia and others will maintain regular contact with foreign leaders whom we will virtually abandon, allowing our adversaries to expand their reach and influence to limit and even harm U.S. interests," the senators said in the letter.
The White House referred questions about the letter to the State Department. A State Department spokesman did not respond to questions about the letter's contents, but accused Democrats of blocking ambassadorial appointments.
"Senate Democrats have engaged in an unprecedented obstruction of President Trump's appointments, including ambassadors and other high-ranking diplomats," the spokesman said.
Republicans, who control the Senate, changed the rules in September in response to what they call a slowdown by Democrats in appointing Trump nominees to a number of government positions.
In a letter sent today, Democratic senators, including the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jeanne Shaheen, as well as Chris Murphy and others, cited examples of how Washington would be left without a high-level American presence in key countries as Beijing and Moscow consolidate their influence.
In regions from the Indo-Pacific to Africa and the Balkans, as well as Latin America, Washington would be on the defensive in countering China's expanding economic reach, the senators said. The withdrawal leaves the United States without a high-level presence in more than half of sub-Saharan Africa.
"For decades, these ambassadors have proven their commitment to faithfully implementing the policies of administrations of both parties," the senators said.
Political appointees leave their posts when a new administration takes office, but career diplomats are often considered non-partisan and typically stay in their posts abroad for three to four years, regardless of a change in government.
But Trump has long been suspicious of bureaucracy and has repeatedly promised to "clean up the deep state" by firing officials he considers disloyal and appointing their loyalists to top positions.
In February, Trump instructed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reform the US Foreign Service to ensure that the Republican president's foreign policy is faithfully implemented.
In July, the Trump administration fired more than 1,300 State Department diplomats and civil servants as Washington faced multiple crises on the world stage.
The total reduction in the number of employees at the US State Department reached about 3,000 after delayed resignations and early retirements, representing more than 11% of its total number of employees in the foreign and civil service, Reuters recalls.
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