New data shows how the Trump administration is destroying the State Department

Sixty percent of State’s equivalent of four-star generals are gone.

Imagine a company where, in the past year, 60 percent of its top management quit and applicants to work there dropped by half. You’d assume that corporation would be on the verge of going bankrupt or in the throes of some catastrophe — Enron after the scandal or Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis.

This is the reality of the US State Department under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, according to new data from the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), the professional organization for America’s diplomatic corps. The numbers reveal that American diplomacy, the backbone of US global influence, is in a state of near collapse.

And it’s basically all the Trump administration’s fault.

The new AFSA data focuses on the top-ranking career officials — meaning people who have spent their lives in the State Department. This includes minister counselors (the equivalent of two-star generals), career ministers (the three-star equivalent), and career ambassadors (the four-star equivalent).

The number of people in each of those posts has declined dramatically since President Trump took office in January. The number of minister counselors in the State Department has gone down by 15 percent, career ministers by 42 percent, and career ambassadors by a whopping 60 percent.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/8/16623278/trump-state-department-data-career