A European diplomat in Washington demanded an answer from the U.S. government when Donald Trump said on April 7 to Iran that "a civilization will die tonight." The diplomat was concerned about the possibility of the president using a nuclear weapon.

In Europe and Asia, there was more concern than whether Trump's apocalyptic threats were real or just bluster. The diplomat expressed concern that Russia might seize this moment to justify similar threat in Ukraine and trigger a nuclear conflict on two continents.

The U.S. State Department was the first to respond. According to the diplomat, however, there was a surprisingly unsettling response from officials in Washington: they didn't understand what Trump meant and what his words could portend.

The incident, which was previously unknown, points to an historic breakdown in American diplomatic relations. In a time when an unpredictable U.S. President is shaking markets and capitals around the globe with dramatic pronouncements governments are scrambling to get clarity. They discover their usual point of contact at U.S. Embassies, or in Washington, are absent, mute, or out of touch. At least half of the 195 American ambassadorial positions around the world are vacant.

Margaret MacMillan is an Oxford University professor who specializes in international history. She said that the Trump administration has eroded America's ability to understand the world, increasing the risk of instability. We won't be able use diplomacy the way we used to: build relationships, reach agreements that are beneficial to both sides, and prevent and end wars.

The Trump administration denies that there has been a breakdown. It says the changes have strengthened U.S. diplomatic efforts and simplified decision-making. Tommy Pigott is a spokesperson for the State Department. He said that the President has the authority to decide who represents American interests and people around the globe.

This account of America’s?diplomatic turmoil is based on the interviews of more than fifty senior diplomats, White House representatives and recently retired ambassadors as well as dozens foreign officials, diplomatics and legislators across Europe and Asia.

While the United States' career diplomats have been fired or sidelined, Washington's allies are rethinking how they do business with Washington. Foreign governments are shifting their diplomacy away from embassies and formal channels in favor of a few people who have direct access to President Obama. This leaves many relying on back channels for managing a superpower with erratic signals.

Some U.S. Allies believe that the best way to deal with a volatile President is to treat his rhetoric as background sound.

This calculus became evident after Trump's threats to destroy Iran stoked nuclear war fears. The next day, British, French and German officials drafted a joint statement that one European diplomat described as "harsh". They chose to not release it because they felt Trump's words were bluster, and that a public rebuke might prompt him to keep bombing. Trump announced in the evening a ceasefire of two weeks with Iran.

Requests for comments from the British, French and German Foreign Ministries were not answered.

This incident, which was also unreported before, illustrates a new approach that many allies are now adopting: restraint rather than confrontation. Diplomats warned that ignoring Trump's threats repeatedly is dangerous, as it could leave them unprepared for a future crisis.

Trump's second tenure is now more than a year old, and influence and information are increasingly being channeled through a few envoys. The two most prominent are Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, a long-time friend of the president. Kushner and Witkoff have no previous diplomatic experience, while Kushner holds no official government title. Some foreign governments prefer to communicate with them through informal channels than official channels.

Kushner and Witkoff have not responded to any requests for comments.

Other countries have developed their own unconventional ways of getting into the White House. South Korean officials bypassed U.S. negotiators in order to form ties with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a person who they believed could explain Trump's real intentions while they fought against his 25% tariffs. Japan also found an unlikely mediator in SoftBank founder Masayoshi son - Trump's golfing partner.

Trump's second-term was a time of intense scrutiny for the State Department. Project 2025 was a 2023 policy blueprint by the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C., which called for a leaner State Department with more political appointees and the removal of career ambassadors deemed hostile to Trump's administration. The plan called to create a more lean State Department, with more political appointees. Career ambassadors who were deemed hostile by the administration would be removed.

Last year, about 3,000 State Department employees left. Nearly half were fired and the remainder took buyouts. This represents a 15% reduction in the U.S. staff. In December, Rubio then ordered the unprecedented recalling of 30 ambassadors around the world.

The American Foreign Service Association (the diplomats' union) reports that 109 out of 195 U.S. diplomatic posts are vacant.

White House officials said that the changes have made the government "more efficient, less bloated, and better able to execute the President's foreign policies."

Washington now has fewer top diplomats in the field, especially in war zones. The U.S. has no ambassador in five of the seven nations bordering Iran and four of the six Gulf States.

Some countries consider this a diplomatic downgrade. Former U.S. Ambassadors and State Department Officials said that the reduced diplomatic presence was a factor in the chaotic scramble of Americans to leave the region after Trump launched the Iran War.

Barbara Leaf, a career diplomat and retired ambassador who served under the first Trump Administration as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates as well as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs during the presidency of Joe Biden, said: "Those missions all should have ambassadors when fighting a war." "At this moment of crisis, and it is an open-ended one, the administration has left those missions in a parlous condition."

Pigott stated that U.S. embassies performed well in the Iran War and are "more then appropriately staffed."

DIPLOMATIC PURGE

Bridget Brink believes that the rupture between the Trump administration's diplomats and their far-flung counterparts could be a matter of death or life. Brink was the U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv at the time Trump returned to power. In March 2025, only days after Trump had an explosive meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at White House, U.S. cut military aid and intelligence to Ukraine. Brink stated that the weapons included air defence munitions which helped protect U.S. Embassy personnel as well as Ukrainians from Russian missiles and drones.

Brink stated in an interview that he had "1,000 people on the ground, all civilians." "And we had Ukrainians protecting us using U.S. equipment and other gear."

She said that the halting in military aid was without notice. When we asked why the aid was stopped, there was no response. Brink contacted the Pentagon, State Department, and White House, "everywhere we could" because we were concerned not only about the Ukrainians, but also our own security. The Pentagon didn't respond to her request for comment. Brink stated that her staff worked behind-the-scenes to convince the Trump administration to resume aid. This was agreed on by the Trump administration on March 11, 2019. She said that she had never received an official explanation as to why the aid had been halted. The National Security Council, the White House's traditional coordinator of foreign and defense policies, was further strained by the layoffs. Trump reduced the NSC in 2025 from hundreds to a handful of people.

Three current and former U.S. government officials in Washington claim that the NSC staff did not hold regular meetings for months and was subject to a de facto prohibition on holding meetings with other agencies on national security or foreign policy. White House official stated that the NSC didn't stop holding regular or interagency meeting, but they were smaller in size and focused on Trump priorities.

Multiple officials stated that during this period staffers received very little formal guidance on major topics, such as the Ukraine War or NATO's Future. They instead scrutinized Trump’s Truth Social for policy signals. The officials stated that many NSC staffers had Trump's account on a dedicated monitor and responded immediately when he posted.

Brink attended NSC meetings regularly under Biden to coordinate and develop complex wartime policies between Washington and Kyiv Embassy. Brink says that under Trump, these meetings ceased. Brink said she was told to "just call" people instead, a method that was inefficient and ineffective in a conflict area where Russian attacks are routine. "We are seven hours ahead of schedule and we're in the bunker nearly every night."

She said that Trump's "appeasement policy" towards Ukraine was the final straw. He wanted closer ties to President Vladimir Putin, while at the same time blaming Ukraine as the cause of Russian aggression. In April 2025, she resigned out of protest. She announced two months later that she would be running for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. The State Department announced on April 28 that her successor, Julie Davis who was charge d'affaires at the time, would also retire in June. The Department of State spokesperson Pigott announced that Davis was retiring after "distinguished 30 years" in the Foreign Service.

Many career diplomats had their ambassadorships abruptly terminated. About 30 career diplomats were abruptly told to leave their posts mid-January, a week before Christmas. Some ambassadors who were leaving called it the "Saturday Night Massacre," an old Watergate phrase that is now used for mass firings.

Ambassadors of the United States are divided into two groups: career diplomats, and political appointees. Both are appointed by the President and confirmed by U.S. Senate. Career diplomats are known for their nonpartisanship and have often had decades of experience. Political appointees usually have a diplomatic background, but are often major donors, former legislators or close allies of the president.

According to the American Foreign Service Association, in U.S. administrations that span nearly 50 years career diplomats typically make up between 57%-74% of ambassadors. About 9% of Trump's ambassadorial appointees in his second term are career diplomats, a drastic decline from the institutional expertise which has guided U.S. diplomatic efforts historically.

The majority of ambassadors recalled by Trump in December are career diplomats. They were appointed to their posts under Biden, but also served Republican administrations including Trump's. Brink, the Ukraine envoy, has served both Republican and Democratic presidents including Trump during his first term.

The State Department stated that the mass recall is a "standard procedure" and said replacements will represent Trump and "advance America First agenda", which, according to the White House, "champion core American interest."

There are still more than 100 ambassadorships available in the world. "We conduct our diplomacy while one arm is tied behind our back," Brian Nichols said, who was an ambassador in Peru and Zimbabwe for Democratic and Republican Presidents between 2014 and 2021.

A new pipeline of diplomats who are aligned to Trump's agenda has emerged.

The Ben Franklin Fellowship was founded in 2024 to identify and promote conservatives at the State Department, and to counter what its leaders call bias against them. The Ben Franklin Fellowship, founded in 2024, is a group of conservatives who identify and promote conservatives within the State Department. It also counters what its leaders describe as bias against them.

On its website, the group lists 95 fellows including Christopher Landau, Deputy Secretary at State. A further 250 members, most of whom are active diplomats hide their identities in order to avoid retaliation by future Democratic administrations.

The Heritage Foundation is one of the largest financial supporters of the Fellowship. It was the foundation that created Project 2025. Heritage Foundation gave the group $100,000 last year, effectively helping Project 2025 to implement one of its main recommendations. It wants to reshape a workforce that it believes is hostile to conservative governments. Heritage said it supported many U.S. organisations but did not exert "direct control" on them.

The fellowship is designed to prevent Trump from appointing State Department employees who might obstruct Trump's agenda. Linderman, along with Matt Boyse, an ex-diplomat and fellow senior fellow at Hudson Institute, which is a conservative think-tank, co-founded the fellowship. The group holds networking seminars and recruits at college campuses. They also advise the Trump administration about career diplomats who they consider to be ideological activists. Boyse said, "We are helping them to find out - if that is what they want to do - whether a person belongs to the resistance."

18 former ambassadors voiced concern about Ben Franklin Fellowship members being promoted to senior positions ahead of people with more experience. Pigott stated that the State Department does not base personnel decisions on membership in outside groups, or demographic quotas.

The Rise of the Envy State

Trump has increasingly bypassed embassies and entrusted sensitive diplomacy with special envoys. Most prominently, Kushner, and Witkoff are his main negotiators for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and Iran.

According to European officials who were involved in the discussion, Kushner, Witkoff, and other officials met with Iranian officials in Geneva late in February, but did not bring any U.S. nuclear experts. Nate Swanson was a career diplomat and Iran expert who served in multiple administrations. The Trump administration had fired him as well as at least half a dozen other Iran nuclear experts during the nine-month period prior to the Iran war.

Swanson was involved in the implementation of the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The highly technical document in which Iran agreed in exchange for lifting nuclear-related sanctions to limit its nuclear program was drafted and reviewed by large teams. Trump retracted from the agreement in 2018. Swanson claims that Witkoff contacted him in April of last year, asking him to resume talks with Tehran. Swanson worked at the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination.

Swanson, on the other hand, said that weeks passed without any meetings regarding Iran. Witkoff was juggling discussions about Ukraine and Gaza, he added. Swanson stated that "we just didn't had any input." Swanson also said that the administration "just started stopping asking for advice" after a while.

Swanson, who had been a member of Witkoff’s negotiating team for less than two months, was fired after right-wing influencer Laura Loomer called him an “Obama holdover” on social media. He now works as a senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Loomer didn't respond to my request for a comment.

A senior European diplomat stated that the U.S. delegation struggled during the last-ditch negotiations in Geneva to understand the significance of the different uranium enrichment thresholds, and other elements of Iran’s nuclear program. This forced European officials to provide explanations. The diplomat asked, "How can you bargain when you don't know the basics?"

After the Geneva talks failed on February 28, the U.S. & Israel began bombing Iran. Witkoff updated reporters on the talks on that day and on March 3. Kelsey Davenport, of the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C., an organization that advocates effective arms control policies, stated that these briefings indicated he misread Iran’s proposal and exaggerated Iran’s nuclear threat, by conflating Iran’s limited enrichment of?uranium, with its near-term weaponsization. She reviewed the recordings and transcripts of?participants at the briefings.

Davenport said Witkoff made many mistakes that suggested "technical ignorance." For instance, he referred Iran's IR-6 uranium enrichment centrifuge to be "probably the most sophisticated centrifuge in all of the world" when it is not the most developed one in Iran. "Witkoff doesn't need to be an expert in nuclear negotiations to make a deal. She said that if he is not a nuclear expert, he needs to be surrounded with people who are.

Democrats in Congress have also questioned the potential conflicts of interests of Trump's two top envoys - Kushner, for negotiating peace agreements with countries where he has business dealings worth billions of dollars; and Witkoff, for the role of his family in a Trump Crypto firm that is seeking to gain traction in the Middle East. Both deny any conflict of interests.

This official at the White House called these claims "a tired story" promoted by Democrats, and stated that both men "fully understand" Iran's offers during negotiations.

The perceived closeness of the ambassadors to Trump's inner circle has given them unusual power. Two European officials remembered how Kushner’s father Charles, the U.S. Ambassador to France, demonstrated his closeness to power when he called Jared in front of foreign colleagues at a meeting.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris declined comment.

David Perdue is a former Georgia Senator and Businessman who has repeated Trump's false claim that the 2020 elections were rigged. Three U.S. officials with a focus on China say that Perdue called Trump directly in order to make decisions and resolve unresolved issues, but senior U.S. diplomatic staff were left out. They said that when planning high-level trips, embassy staff would often wait until Perdue called Trump before making final arrangements. This was a departure from the old practice of making such decisions at lower levels.

Wolfgang Ischinger is a former German Ambassador to Washington. He said that the current American approach reflects an unprecedented concentration of power in one person, Trump. He said that Trump would make decisions sometimes over night, in formal meetings, and sometimes without. "This is very different and I am not sure that the Trump method of making decisions guarantees good decisions."

Some countries have found ways to get into the White House through unconventional means.

Trump threatened South Korea's export-driven economy in April 2025 by imposing a 25% tariff. Kang Hoon Sik, chief of the presidential staff in South Korea, said that South Korean officials struggled to determine if their U.S. counterparts accurately represented Trump's position during subsequent trade negotiations. South Korean officials adapted instead by engaging directly Wiles, White House chief-of-staff. This arrangement was unusual. Kang was not the usual Korean counterpart to the U.S. in matters of foreign policy, trade or security, and Wiles was not a trade negotiator.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry and President's Office did not respond to a comment request.

Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank and Trump's golfing buddy Masayoshi Son.

Shigeru Ishiba?who was prime minister from October 2025 until now, said that during his time as leader, Japan used Son as a backchannel to reach Trump. This is the first public acknowledgement of Son's involvement. Ishiba claimed that Son was primarily acting in his business interests but acknowledged that his government sent messages to Trump via Son.

Ishiba said that it was important to reach Trump directly because "the people surrounding him are all Yes-men."

SoftBank and Son refused to comment. Japan's Foreign Ministry denied that Son was used as a backchannel, but refused to comment on Ishiba.

Pigott, State's spokesperson, said that he "rejects" the idea that Trump made key decisions without the input of experienced professionals. He called the use by some countries of envoys to the White House and direct telephone lines as an effective way for Trump to communicate with them. He said that the sustained direct engagement of the highest levels in this administration is an asset. Anyone claiming otherwise does not know what they're talking about.

The world re-calibrates

Trump has rewritten diplomatic norms by issuing a constant stream of threats, aimed both at enemies like Iran and allies such as Denmark, Canada and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The governments have had to decide whether a public response would ease tensions or worsen them.

This is what happened early in April, after Trump warned the Iranian civilization could be destroyed. The joint statement was drafted by officials in Britain, France, and Germany. But they decided not to release it.

The diplomat who helped to draft the statement said, "We thought that in the end, (he) does not bite every time he barks so loudly." European officials thought a U.S. truce with Iran was still possible, and were worried that Trump would continue to bomb if he received a public rebuke. They were cautious. Trump declared a ceasefire at the end of the first day.

This episode taught many U.S. Allies a valuable lesson: The best way to respond to Trump's extreme threats is by remaining silent.

Some European diplomats refer to this as the "Merkel Method," in reference to the stoic reaction of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel during Trump's initial term: accept provocations without public response while firmly protecting national interests.

Some allies, such as Australia and New Zealand did criticize Trump’s Iran remarks. Some others, such as Japan, chose to remain silent.

Takeshi Iwaya was a former foreign minister for Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party. He said that President Trump's comments changed frequently, and we eventually stopped reacting to them. "Reacting only leads to unnecessary reactions." (Pamuk, Shiffman, Slattery, and Shalal contributed from Washington, D.C., Irish, from Paris, Kelly, from Tokyo, and Marshall, from London.) Additional reporting was done by Tamiyuki, Yoshifumi and John Geddie from Tokyo; Dan Flynn and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Andreas Rinke in Berlin; James Mackenzie and Michel Rose in Paris; Peter Hobson and Lucy Craymer in Canberra; Antony Slodkowski and Michael Holden in London; and Michael Holden and Elizabeth Piper in London. Jason Szep edited the article.

(source: Reuters)