Every year, the State Department completes a thorough process involving multiple layers of review to determine who in the foreign service will get promoted. For some of the employees approved for ...

Just before Christmas, President Donald Trump fired more than two dozen career ambassadors. The action was unprecedented, ...

In an unusual move, the Trump administration is recalling the ambassadors from nearly 30 countries around the world. William Brangham discussed this move with John Dinkelman, president of the American ...

Fired US State Department workers push their belongings in a shopping cart as they leave the building in Washington, DC, on July 11, 2025. The US State Department began laying off more than 1,300 ...

The Donald Trump administration is scrapping the State Department’s current Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) and introducing a new version that it says would be strictly “merit-based,” in contrast ...

The State Department will finalize its layoffs of 250 foreign service officers on Friday, according to a new notice sent to impacted staff, despite a congressionally mandated moratorium on the cuts ...

Changes by the Trump administration have left US diplomats demoralized and less able to do their jobs, according to a scathing new report by the union representing foreign service officers. The report ...

NPR's Steve Inskeep asks John Dinkelman, new president of the American Foreign Service Association, about how layoffs will affect the State Department and American diplomacy. People fired last week at ...

The foreign service officer failed to disclose his contact with the woman, the daughter of a Chinese Communist Party official, the State Department said. By Neil Vigdor The State Department has fired ...