Trump recalling US diplomats from about 30 countries around the world, including Armenia, writes AP

The Trump administration is recalling nearly 30 career diplomats from ambassadorial and other senior embassy posts as it moves to reshape the U.S. diplomatic posture abroad with personnel deemed fully supportive of President Donald Trump’s “America First” priorities, the Associated Press writes.

The agency writes that all of the mentioned officials had taken up their posts in the Biden administration but had survived an initial purge in the early months of Trump’s second term that targeted mainly political appointees. That changed on Wednesday when they began to receive notices from officials in Washington about their imminent departures. In Asia, ambassadorial changes come to six countries: Fiji, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vietnam affected.

Senior US diplomats in Algeria and Egypt have also received dismissal notices.

The staffing changes will also affect U.S. embassies in Armenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovakia. The Associated Press reports that the diplomats in question will be required to return to Washington, where they will be assigned to other assignments.

These personnel changes are part of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plan to reorganize the department in order to make financial savings and ideological adjustments.

As Rubio stated in late April, the Trump administration will implement a “comprehensive reorganization” of the State Department, primarily to reduce bureaucracy. According to The Washington Post, Rubio’s plan, among other things, calls for tens of thousands of State Department staff cuts, as well as the closure of several consulates and some foreign service programs. The cuts are expected to affect about 15% of the State Department’s central staff (3,400 employees).