President Donald Trump, left, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, look on during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The State Department’s plans will slash or merge 311 existing domestic offices, ultimately eliminating up to roughly 3,400 State Department personnel, who make up between 15% and 20% of the agency’s domestic headcount, according to State Department officials.
The agency currently boasts roughly 700 offices, meaning the reorganization will cut or join more than 40% of the offices.
"We are really addressing a significant portion of the department's domestic offices and sort of merging them, combining them, trying to make them more efficient," the senior State Department official said.
Staff have not received notifications regarding the reduction in force yet, but they are expected to receive an update on reductions in force by July 1.
Whereas three offices overseeing sanctions issues previously existed, the overhaul will merge all of those branches together to make it more clear who to report to, according to the official.
However, a few additions are in the works. The plans also include adding approximately nine new offices, the State Department officials said.
New positions include a deputy assistant secretary for democracy and Western values, as well as new immigration security offices under the agency’s bureau of population, refugees and migration to tackle President Donald Trump's immigration priorities.
Likewise, the restructuring adds a new bureau of emerging threats that will address issues pertaining to artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons and space.
"So we're not just cutting these things," the senior State Department official said. "We're re-imagining them to advance the administration's agenda."
The reorganization structure only affects domestic offices and also seeks to cut down on the layers of bureaucracy in Washington to give more power to the embassies abroad, according to State Department officials.
The State Department has domestic offices all across the U.S., ranging from the East Coast in Boston, all the way to San Francisco and Honolulu. The State Department has more than 270 diplomatic posts outside the U.S.
WHITE HOUSE PROPOSAL AXES UN, NATO FUNDS AND HALVES STATE DEPARTMENT BUDGET
Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., May 20, 2025. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
"They are identifying problems and opportunities well in advance of some memo that works its way to me," Rubio told lawmakers. "We want to get back to a situation or we want to get to a situation where we are empowering ideas and action at the embassy level and through our regional bureaus. Those are literally the front lines of American diplomacy. And so we have structured a State Department that can deliver on that."
Meanwhile, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., voiced caution about the reforms in April after Rubio’s initial announcement and said any changes "must be carefully weighed with the real costs to American security and leadership."
"A strong and mission-ready State Department advances American national security interests, opens up new markets for American workers and companies and promotes global peace and stability," Shaheen said in her April statement. "It remains to be seen how the administration’s latest proposals will achieve that goal."
Diana Stancy is a politics reporter with Fox News Digital covering the White House.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox
Subscribed
You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter!
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rubio-spearheads-massive-state-dept-reorganization-set-eliminate-merge-more-than-300-offices