WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration has asked US embassies worldwide to prepare for staff cuts, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as part of the Republican president’s effort to overhaul the US diplomatic corps.
The sources said some embassies had been asked to look into reducing both US staff as well as locally-employed staff by 10 percent each, with a list of the workforce due to be sent to the State Department by Friday, which will then determine further actions.
US embassies around the world employ both diplomats and local staff. Most embassy staff come from the host country, according to the National Museum of American Diplomacy.
Separately, a US official said that around 60 contractors at the State Department’s bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor had been terminated in recent weeks and that there was a possibility of further cuts in other bureaus.
ABC News first reported that US embassies had been told to start planning for staff reductions.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The moves come as Trump tries to reshape the diplomatic corps, issuing on Wednesday an executive order directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revamp the foreign service to ensure “faithful and effective implementation” of his foreign policy agenda.
The order, which follows efforts to dismantle the US Agency for International Development, comes as Trump makes changes to ensure US foreign policy is aligned with his “America First” agenda. He has also repeatedly pledged to “clean out the deep state” by firing bureaucrats that he deems disloyal.
The order, which was titled “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations” also says failure to implement the president’s agenda is grounds for professional discipline, which may result in firing personnel.
“The Secretary must maintain an exceptional workforce of patriots to implement this policy effectively,” the order read.
The order also directs a potential revamp of the Foreign Affairs Manual, a comprehensive set of policies and procedures that lay out how the State Department operates, at home and abroad.
Just hours after taking office on January 20, Trump ordered a freeze of most US foreign aid to ensure it was aligned with his “America First” policies. USAID, the chief US humanitarian agency, became the first target of the effort led by billionaire Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, to reduce the size of the US government.
Since January 20, Musk has dispatched members of his Department of Government Efficiency to scrutinize sensitive personnel and payment information in government computer systems. Aside from USAID, he led the drive to also dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that protects Americans from unscrupulous lenders.
US embassies told to prepare for staff cuts as Trump overhauls diplomatic corps
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US embassies told to prepare for staff cuts as Trump overhauls diplomatic corps
- US president tries to reshape diplomatic corps to align with 'America First' agenda
- 60 contractors terminated at State Department's bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
Pakistan aims to deport millions of Afghans but local ties and resistance stall the campaign
As an Afghan, Khan ought to be leaving as part of a nationwide crackdown on foreigners the Pakistani government says are living in the country illegally. But the only heat he feels is from the kitchen.
“I have been here for almost 50 years. I got married here, so did my children, and 10 of my family members are buried here. That’s why we have no desire to leave,” he said.
Khan is one of more than 3 million Afghans that Pakistan wants to expel this year. At least a third live in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and that’s just those with documents like an Afghan Citizen Card or proof of registration.
It is not clear how many undocumented Afghans are in the country.
Shared cultural, ethnic and linguistic ties
The provincial government — led by the party of imprisoned former premier Imran Khan — appears reluctant to repatriate Afghans. Mountainous terrain, sectarian violence and an array of militant groups have also challenged the central government's expulsion ambitions.
“Afghans can never be completely repatriated, especially from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as they return using illegal channels or exploiting loopholes in the system despite fencing at the border,” said Abdullah Khan, managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. “Many villages along the border are divided between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and people in the past three or four decades were never stopped from visiting either side.”
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s proximity to Afghanistan, together with shared ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties, make it a natural destination for Afghans. The province has hosted significant numbers since the 1980s.
Many Afghans have integrated, even marrying locals. The region feels familiar and it’s easier to access through legal and illegal routes than other parts of Pakistan.
While the provincial government was cooperating with federal counterparts, policy implementation remained slow, analyst Khan told The Associated Press.
“The (local) government is sympathetic to Afghans for multiple reasons," he said. "They share the same traditions and culture as the province, and former Prime Minister Imran Khan during his days in power consistently opposed coercive measures toward Afghan refugees.”
Authorities are also wary about unrest, with Afghans living in almost all of the province’s cities, towns and villages.
A slow repatriation rate
Although police were raiding homes in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other cities in Punjab and Sindh province farther from the border, the “lack of aggressive enforcement” was the main reason for the slow repatriation rate, analyst Khan said.
Pressure on Pakistan to have a change of heart — from rights groups, aid agencies and Afghanistan's Taliban government — could also be a factor.
More than 35,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since the start of April through the northwest Torkham crossing. It’s a far cry from the volume seen in the early phases of the expulsion campaign in 2023, when hundreds of thousands fled to beat a government-imposed deadline to leave.
Many recent deportations have been from eastern Punjab, which is hundreds of kilometers from the border and home to some 200,000 Afghans with documents.
‘We are going under duress’
At a highway rest stop on the outskirts of Peshawar, a truck carrying 30 Afghans stopped to give passengers a break before they left Pakistan for good. They had come from Punjab. Families nestled among furniture, clothes and other items. A woman in a burqa, the covering commonly seen in Afghanistan, clambered down.
Ajab Gul said the actions of Pakistani officials had forced them to leave: “We didn’t want to go. They raided our houses two or three times. We are going under duress.”
Another truckload of passengers from Punjab pulled over by the Torkham border crossing to speak to the AP.
Jannat Gul outlined the dilemma that awaited many. “Our children’s education (in Afghanistan) has been destroyed. We’re going there, but we have no connections, no acquaintances. In fact, people often call us Pakistanis. No one regards us as Afghan.”
‘If they take him, I will stop them’
There were happier scenes at the Kababayan refugee camp in Peshawar, where children played and ate ice cream in the sunshine. The camp, established in 1980 shortly after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, is home to more than 15,000 people and has schools, a health center, electricity and drinking water.
School is a crucial reason Afghans want to stay in Pakistan, because the Taliban have barred girls from education beyond sixth grade.
Muhammad Zameer, a camp resident, said girls’ education was “non-existent” across the border.
Other camp residents have a different concern: their Afghan husbands. Afghan men face deportation, and their local wives are unhappy.
Some are fighting to get their husbands a Pakistani identity card, which unlocks basic public services as well as indefinite stay, property ownership, bank account access and employment.
Some wives said they are willing to fight anyone deporting their husbands.
“I never imagined the government would treat my husband like this,” said one, Taslima. “If they take him, I will stop them."
US flies long-range bomber for drill with South Korea, as Pyongyang marks key anniversary
- North Korea often reacts to the US deployment of B-1B bombers and other powerful military assets
- Tuesday’s flyover of the US bombers could draw an angrier response
SEOUL: The United States flew long-range B-1B bombers in a show of force against North Korea on Tuesday, days after the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to resist a US-led push to eliminate the North’s nuclear program.
North Korea often reacts to the US deployment of B-1B bombers and other powerful military assets with missile tests and fiery rhetoric. Tuesday’s flyover of the US bombers could draw an angrier response because it happened when North Korea was marking a key anniversary – the 113th birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of the current leader.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the US bombers participated in a South Korea-US aerial drill over the Korean Peninsula to strengthen the allies’ combined operational capability and demonstrate their deterrence capability against North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.
A ministry statement said South Korean F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and American F-16 fighter jets also took part in the training. It said South Korea and the US will continue to expand their joint military exercises to respond to North Korean nuclear threats.
It was the second time a US B-1B’s had participated in a drill with South Korea since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.
In February, North Korea’s Defense Ministry slammed the B-1B’s earlier flyover as proof of intensifying US-led provocations since Trump’s inauguration. It pledged to counter the strategic threat of the US with strategic means. Days later, North Korea test-fired cruise missiles in what it called an attempt to show its nuclear counterattack capability.
Trump has repeatedly said he will reach out to Kim Jong Un to revive diplomacy. North Korea hasn’t directly responded to Trump’s outreach.
Last Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong – Kim’s sister and a senior official – derided the US and its Asian allies over what she called their “daydream” of denuclearizing the North, insisting that the country will never give up its nuclear weapons program. Her statement came as a response to a recent meeting among the top diplomats of the United States, South Korea and Japan where they reaffirmed their commitment to push for the North’s denuclearization.
The Kim Il Sung birthday, called “the Day of Sun,” is one of the most important holidays in North Korea, where a state-sponsored cult of personality treats key members of the ruling Kim family like gods. On Tuesday, the country’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper issued an editorial urging the public to rally behind Kim Jong Un to achieve a national prosperity. In recent days, North Korea has held seminars, performances and other events commemorating the founder’s achievements.
Singapore dissolves parliament ahead of imminent election
- The vote will be the first electoral test for Prime Minister Lawrence Wong
- The election will take place amid a gloomy economic outlook
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s parliament was dissolved on Tuesday ahead of a general election to be held within three months, a government gazette said.
The vote will be the first electoral test for Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took over from long-time premier Lee Hsien Loong as leader of the People’s Action Party in May 2024.
The PAP is almost certain to dominate and win most seats, as it has in every vote since independence in 1965, although its share of the popular vote will be closely watched after one of its worst electoral performances in the last contest in 2020.
The election will take place amid a gloomy economic outlook as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to hit activity in the trade-reliant nation, which on Monday downgraded its growth forecast for 2025 to 0 percent to 2 percent, from 1 percent to 3 percent.
The ruling party’s popularity has dimmed in recent elections as the opposition steadily gained more ground in parliament, winning an unprecedented 6 seats in 2011 and 2015, and 10 in 2020.
The upcoming election will have four more seats compared to the last vote in 2020, with 97 lawmakers elected from 15 single-member electoral divisions and 18 divisions with 4 or 5 members each.
In February, Wong delivered what analysts called “a full-blown election budget” with goodies for all Singaporeans ahead of the polls.
Russia says it is not easy to agree Ukraine peace deal with US
- Donald Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a ceasefire but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin
- Foreign Minister Lavrov warns that key disagreements remain with the US and insists Ukraine must abandon NATO ambitions and withdraw from Russian-claimed territories
MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was not easy to agree with the United States on the key parts of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and that Russia would never again allow itself to depend economically on the West.
US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the three-year war in Ukraine, though a deal has yet to be agreed.
“It is not easy to agree the key components of a settlement. They are being discussed,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper when asked if Moscow and Washington had agreement on some aspects of a possible peace deal.
“We are well aware of what a mutually beneficial deal looks like, which we have never rejected, and what a deal looks like that could lead us into another trap,” Lavrov said in the interview published in Tuesday’s edition.
The Kremlin on Sunday said that it was too early to expect results from the restoration of more normal relations with Washington.
Lavrov said that Russia’s position had been set out clearly by President Vladimir Putin in June 2024, when Putin demanded Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.
“We’re talking about the rights of the people who live on these lands. That is why these lands are dear to us. And we cannot give them up, allowing people to be kicked out of there,” Lavrov said.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and parts of four other regions Moscow now claims are part of Russia — a claim not recognized by most countries.
Lavrov praised Trump’s “common sense” and for saying that previous US support of Ukraine’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.
But Russia’s political elite, he said, would not countenance any moves that led Russia back toward economic, military, technological or agricultural dependence on the West.
The globalization of the world economy, Lavrov said, had been destroyed by sanctions imposed on Russia, China and Iran by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine describe Russia’s 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.
Putin casts the war in Ukraine as part of a battle with a declining West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Xi’s Vietnam trip aiming to ‘screw’ US, says Trump
- Xi Jinping is in Vietnam as part of a Southeast Asia tour that will include Malaysia and Cambodia
- Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to Trump as leaders confront US tariffs
HANOI: China’s President Xi Jinping paid tribute to Vietnam’s late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh on Tuesday, his last day of a trip to Hanoi that President Donald Trump said was aiming to “screw” the United States.
Xi is in Vietnam as part of a Southeast Asia tour that will include Malaysia and Cambodia, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to Trump as leaders confront US tariffs.
The Chinese leader called on his country and Vietnam Monday to “oppose unilateral bullying and uphold the stability of the global free trade system,” according to Beijing’s state media.
Hours later, Trump told reporters at the White House that their meeting was aimed at hurting the United States.
“I don’t blame China. I don’t blame Vietnam. I don’t. I see they’re meeting today, and that’s wonderful,” he said.
“That’s a lovely meeting... like trying to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America.”
China and Vietnam signed 45 cooperation agreements on Monday, including on supply chains, artificial intelligence, joint maritime patrols and railway development.
Xi said a meeting with Vietnam’s top leader To Lam on Monday that their countries were “standing at the turning point of history... and should move forward with joint hands.”
Lam said after the talks that the two leaders “reached many important and comprehensive common perceptions,” according to Vietnam News Agency.
On the final day of his visit, Xi laid a red wreath emblazoned with his name and the words “Long live Vietnam’s great leader President Ho Chi Minh” at the late leader’s mausoleum in central Hanoi.
He is also due to attend the launch of the Vietnam-China Railway Cooperation, which will help manage an $8-billion rail project – announced this year – to link Vietnam’s largest northern port city to the border with China.
Xi’s trip comes almost two weeks after the United States – the biggest export market for Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, in the first three months of the year – imposed a 46 percent levy on Vietnamese goods as part of a global tariff blitz.
Although the US tariffs on Vietnam and most other countries have been paused, China still faces enormous levies and is seeking to tighten regional trade ties and offset their impact during Xi’s first overseas trip of the year.
Xi will head to Malaysia later Tuesday and then Cambodia on a tour that “bears major importance” for the broader region, Beijing has said.
Xi earlier urged Vietnam and China to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”
He also reiterated Beijing’s line that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere” in an article published on Monday in Vietnam’s major state-run Nhan Dan newspaper.
China and Vietnam, both ruled by communist parties, already share a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Hanoi’s highest diplomatic status.
Vietnam has long pursued a “bamboo diplomacy” approach – striving to stay on good terms with both China and the United States.
The two countries have close economic ties, but Hanoi shares US concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested South China Sea.
