'Uncharted territory': US diplomats are withholding info at odds with Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before departing for Scotland, on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 25, 2025. REUTERS Kent Nishimura

NBC reports American diplomats received an alarming Aug. 28 email from the American Foreign Service Association, the labor union and professional association of the U.S. Foreign Service.

"We are operating in uncharted territory," said the email, warning of the Trump administration’s vengeful response to candid advice and objective assessments. "The environment facing the Foreign Service today is unlike anything we’ve seen."

Diplomats posted at embassies abroad are being called back from their assignments "after providing less-than-positive analysis or unwelcome recommendations to leadership," said the association. “… Even if offered discreetly, any statement, verbal or written, can be politicized and used against you. That is the reality we face."

NBC reports the union’s warning to its members is only the latest example of how federal civil servants at the State Department are facing mounting pressure from the White House to downplay information or views that “do not strictly adhere to the president’s partisan agenda.”

U.S. presidents traditionally rely on experts to head off or defuse economic downturns, public safety risks, geopolitical shifts and credible terrorist threats, according to NBC. But experts say Trump’s second term appears to prefer to dictate information to its info-gatherers, risking “potentially disastrous consequences” with incomplete or skewed information.

"What we’re seeing in the diplomatic corps right now is fear," said John Dinkelman, a retired career diplomat who is now president of the American Foreign Service Association.

Union officials say Trump and his team demand seasoned career civil servants surrender impartiality for a more partisan stance backing the administration’s agenda, regardless of whether that stance squares with reality.

“I am getting reports from literally all over the world of individuals who are reticent to offer up their well trained and well experienced opinions regarding the situation on the ground, the way in which foreign interlocutors will view our positions, and even to propose — heaven forbid — an alternate course of action,” Dinkelman said.

Trump and his administration “run the risk of blinding themselves to things that they ought to know before they do something," said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland Kettl. This could lead to actions that "end up causing implications that they never would have dreamed of."

Read the full NBC report at this link.

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