Foreign Affairs

....hopes for the State Department's future.

Although last week’s “leaked” US State Department reorganization plans were a bit overblown, Secretary of State Marco Rubio today did produce his actual plans for restructuring the agency. The actual plans do eliminate around 700 positions, and the new org chart results in an 18% reduction in the number of offices. Between the rumors flying and the facts just emerging, this column’s interest is in how the new “America First State Department” will continue working to protect children from abuse and exploitation.

I wrote earlier about hopes that the work USAID did in this area would continue as that agency is consolidated under the State Department. It appears that work will now be under an Office for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs, with bureaus for “Democracy, Human Rights, and Religious Freedom” and “Population, Refugees, and Migration.” International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), which has supported the capacity of judicial and legal institutions to protect victims, remains in place as a bureau led by the Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security. The result will come as a relief to many, as some had prophesied the complete elimination of these agencies. Still uncertain is the future of the Fulbright program, which a supposed draft document said “was reauthorized solely for master’s-level study in national security–related disciplines, including but not limited to strategic studies, cybersecurity, nuclear policy, counterterrorism, intelligence, energy security, and regional or area studies.”

Whatever the organization looks like, it remains important for the United States to continue to defend and promote Western values around the world. At the end of the Cold War, many believed our American values — majority rule, respect for minority rights, the rule of law, individual rights, religious freedom, the equal dignity of each person — had triumphed. Now we’re not so sure. Chinese authoritarian-type rule is on the rise, aided by its economic dominance over much of the developing world. “Wokeness,” cancel culture, self-censorship, and cultural Maoism were on the increase for several years. Trump’s 2024 election was due, in some significant part, to backlash against a perceived loss of Enlightenment values and individual freedoms.

Demonstrating those values must remain an important role of US foreign affairs, and one of the best ways to show those values is to support efforts to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in society. INL and State have traditionally worked to improve the capacity of governments and courts to crack down on child trafficking and child abuse and to support victims. The US government has supported Fulbright scholars working on efforts abroad to bolster the rule of law, improve social work policy and practice, and ensure an independent, fair, responsive judiciary. US expertise in child welfare and child protection has had a tremendous impact on international law and practice, including especially the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Back in the late 1990s, a young attorney named Gary Haugen and his upstart nonprofit, International Justice Mission, began using the power of law to address sex trafficking of children and young women in Southeast Asia. Until that point, there was little attention paid to the issue. Today, so many Americans are engaged in efforts to stop this plague, and the international fight against human trafficking is a major focus of US foreign policy and a pillar of the State Department’s work. It’s a great example of how we as Americans value human dignity and how we leverage the work of passionate advocates and our foreign policy institutions to demonstrate those values internationally.