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The Trump administration has sailed by removing the US State Department Agency responsible for politics in Africa and closing many embassies on the continent in a executive order that has been decreed as a “fraud” by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The document, seen by the Financial Times, also proposes the reduction of the US President’s envoy for the climate, along with the offices responsible for human rights, refugees and American politics in the UN and other international organizations. US diplomatic operations in Canada, including the Embassy in Ottawa, will also “decrease significantly”.
Rubio said the Draft of the Order, which was first reported by the New York Times, was “fake news”. In a statement, the State Department said: “The NYT article is fully based on a false document.”
The White House referred to reporters in Rubio’s response.
“The draft is legal, but still a draft,” said one former US official. “I see it as more a judicial balloon.”
The Draft of the Order, which has not yet been completed, calls for Rubio to make the changes until October 1st. Will it come into force, mark a dramatic change in the way the US government engages with the world for the next four years and beyond.
He calls for a “disciplined reorganization” of the department to “run the mission distribution, the American force project abroad, cut waste, fraud, abuse” and approximate the department with the White House’s first strategic doctrine “.
The document describes the doctrine as based on the principle: “Do America make America safer, stronger and more prosperous?”
The proposed order would close the African Affairs Bureau, an agency that has supervised US policy across the continent since it was opened in 1958. Sub-Saharan African operations would be led by a special envoy for African Affairs.
The document also requires that all “embassies and non-essential consulates” in sub-Saharan Africa be closed, with all the “diplomatic and development operations” in the region to be relocated under the supervision of the Special Messenger.
The proposed order said that the Special Envoy for Africa would focus on four US advantages on the continent. These would be: against terrorism; Diplomacy that advances US interests for “specific temporary issues”; health supervision and coordination of the epidemic; and strategic extraction and trade of critical minerals.
Massad Bouulos, the Supreme Counsel of the State Department for Africa, and the father -in -law of Trump Tiffany’s daughter, told a recent visit to the continent that the US was negotiating with the Democratic Republic of Congo to allow US companies to take control of mineral assets in exchange for mediation with a conflict supported by Ruanda.
The US Agency for International Development was significantly destroyed in the first week of Trump’s second administration in January, banning almost all of its help and development work, with Africa the most difficult hit.
The office of the Global AIDS Coordinator of the US, which directs the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS (Pepfar), would also be eliminated according to the draft proposal.
Most of Pepfar’s work, which was launched by former President George W Bush in 2003, is concentrated in Africa and is believed to save about 20 life.
As part of the proposed restructuring of the State Department, some other regional offices would be eliminated and replaced by four young “troops” for Eurasia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Indo-Indo-Manage to manage global issues.
The proposal will provide purchases by September 30 for current foreign service officers and qualified civil service employees who do not want to participate “in reorganization.
Additional reporting from Claire Jones to Washington
