It has been reported that notifications of the termination of powers were handed to the heads of diplomatic missions last week, and they will expire in January 2026.
All recalled diplomats held their positions during Joe Biden's presidency. Although they will leave their current posts, they will be offered to return to Washington for appointments to other positions if they wish, officials said.
While the State Department did not provide an exact number of recalled ambassadors, it confirmed that such changes are part of "standard practice" for any administration.
The department emphasized that ambassadors serve as "personal representatives of the president," and he has the right to ensure that people who support his "America First" agenda are working in other countries.
The agency reports that the largest number of recalled diplomats came from African countries, where ambassadors were recalled from 13 states, including Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, and Uganda.
Six ambassadors will also be replaced in six Asian countries, including Fiji, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
The changes will also affect four European countries (Armenia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovakia), two countries in the Middle East (Algeria and Egypt), as well as two countries in South and Central Asia (Nepal and Sri Lanka) and in the Western Hemisphere (Guatemala and Suriname).
At the end of February, Politico reported on the U.S. president's administration's intentions to radically reform the State Department, including reducing the number of diplomats, embassies, and the department's powers, particularly in Germany, France, Italy, and Brazil.
In mid-July, the State Department notified its employees of plans to lay off hundreds of them "in the coming days," which became possible after a Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to begin mass layoffs in federal agencies, as reported by the FT.
At the beginning of 2025, the department informed Congress that the cuts would affect about 1,800 people, in addition to nearly a thousand others who chose to leave voluntarily, according to FT data.
