Devex Newswire: What was the rationale behind the State Department firings?

No one likes being fired. But people really hate being fired when the reason why isn’t clear. In that vein, Democrats are demanding answers on the decision-making process that led to 1,300 U.S. State Department employees being let go.

Also in today’s edition: The U.S. Senate advances Trump’s rescissions package, and emergency food aid literally goes up in smoke.

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RIF reasoning

Why did the U.S. State Department fire the people it did? That question repeatedly came up yesterday during a Senate hearing where Democrats grilled Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas over the recent reductions in force, or RIFs, that saw roughly 1,300 State Department workers get pink slips.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, echoed concerns that the decision-making process behind the RIFs was indiscriminate and based more on who happened to work in the bureaus that got axed, rather than on performance.

Rigas pushed back with a lengthy explanation of how the process worked, arguing that merit was taken into account. “So while there are people who have skills and experience who were unfortunately part of the reduction in force, you can sort of take some comfort to know … that the people who remain were the ones who ranked highest under this sort of merit system process.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons didn’t buy it, countering that the competition for positions was limited and that the way 1,300 people were “pushed out the door … cost us huge talent.”

“You literally just fired department experts on nuclear proliferation, including experts with decades of expertise on Iran's nuclear weapons program, [on] ending Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yet the intelligence analysts with decades of experience on Russia and Ukraine walked out the door,” he said. “Claiming that you've consolidated offices in the interests of efficiency, I think, misses the point that this competition was done in a sloppy, rushed way that has cost us decades of relevant, critical experience.”

Read: Democrats demand answers on how US State Department firings went down (Pro)

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Hiring the right people

In addition to the firings, Democrats are also questioning the State Department’s hiring.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has given Secretary of State Marco Rubio a deadline: By July 23, Meeks wants to know how Rubio’s team is transferring staff from USAID to the State Department — and how they are ensuring the right people will be taking on the remnants of USAID.

Of particular concern, Meeks says, was that embassies are advertising senior program management or specialist positions as open to “Eligible Family Members” and “Members of Household,” a type of categorization used to classify those who live with a foreign service officer abroad.

“The State Department’s approach to hiring demonstrates both a significant lack of understanding regarding the technical capabilities and accountability needed for these positions,” Meeks writes in his letter to Rubio. “It further demonstrates the complete absence of foresight in planning for the transfer of these programs.”

Meeks asks Rubio whether a “cost-benefit or other analysis” was completed before offboarding and providing severance payments to USAID personnel who will now be transferred to the State Department, and how many embassies were advertising positions as open to eligible family members.

Despite the deadline, it seems like Meeks has already made up his mind.

“The wholly insufficient retention of USAID personnel both in Washington, D.C., and at posts globally caused by your haphazard staffing plans poses tremendous risk to both the Department and the United States,” he writes. “Without sufficient personnel to provide oversight and enforce controls, foreign assistance programs are left vulnerable to mismanagement, waste, and increased liability.”

State under fire

Yesterday was probably not a fun day for State Department’s Michael Rigas. In addition to the interrogation he got on firings at the department, Democratic senators slammed him over the Trump administration’s reported failure to prevent the incineration of 500 metric tons of emergency food aid that’s been allowed to expire amid the White House’s foreign aid cuts, my colleague Michael Igoe writes.

“What do you think Martin Luther King Jr. would say about a nation that purchased food for starving kids and then locked it in a warehouse until it expired and incinerated it, rather than giving it out so the 27,000 starving kids could survive meagerly for one more month?” asked Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, noting that Rigas and the American civil rights leader attended the same university.

Rigas responded that he is “distressed” by media reports about the destroyed food and does not have an explanation for why the State Department opted to burn it rather than distribute it — though he also questioned the veracity of those media reports.

“Forgive me if I don't always take everything that's reported in the media to be 100% factual,” he said, “but I do want to find out what happened here and get to the ground truth.”

Read: Senators slam Trump official over expired food aid

+ What’s left of U.S. food aid and agricultural support? And what’s been lost? We’ll be tackling these questions and diving into what’s next for food aid programs in a Devex Pro briefing with food systems experts on Monday, July 21, at 9 a.m. ET. Register to participate here.

Vote-a-rama

It was a long, tiring day (and night) for senators all around as they wrestled with the White House’s recessions package that would claw back roughly $9 billion in previously approved funding, mostly for foreign aid.

After a marathon debate, the senators voted 51 to 48 to push ahead a final bill that’s slated to strip billions in development, humanitarian and economic assistance. It will also slice away more than $1 billion from the United Nations and rescind funding for public broadcasting in the United States, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes.

With the Senate's vote complete, the spotlight now shifts back to the House of Representatives, where lawmakers now need to approve the Senate bill and send it to the president’s desk — all before a deadline of this Friday. If they fail to do so, the rescissions request will expire and the money will have to be spent.

House lawmakers passed a more expansive version of the package in June. Their package was virtually identical to the White House’s original request and included a provision to strip $400 million from PEPFAR — the U.S. flagship HIV/AIDS initiative — which Senate lawmakers removed.

Read: How the Senate saved PEPFAR — but still greenlit billions in aid cuts

Plus: Senate blocks $400M cut to PEPFAR, but it's a shell of its former self 

Just maybe

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, could the European Union be going in the opposite direction of the United States on foreign aid? Maybe. For weary aid advocates, though, a “maybe” is still probably better than a “no.”

The EU yesterday unveiled the first draft of its next seven-year budget, which commits $2.3 trillion, up from the $1.4 trillion in the current budget, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz writes.

Out of that total, $232 billion will go to Global Europe, the main tool for the EU's external action, including its development finance. This is a big uptick from the current budget, which allocates $92.3 billion.

“€200 billion for Global Europe — a staggering 75% increase — shows that the EU wants to play a bigger role on the global stage,” says Alexei Jones of the European Centre for Development Policy Management.

But here’s where that “maybe” part comes in. The final tally likely won’t be reached until December 2027, and a lot could change before then. As Jones notes, the development budget is historically prone to “major cuts” during negotiations.

Read: EU seeks major boost to development in budget amid ‘Europe First’ shift

In other news

China’s Belt and Road Initiative contracts and investments reached a new peak in the first half of 2025, with the total value coming up to $1.3 trillion, according to a study. [Financial Times]

Laurence Tubiana, a French diplomat who serves as co-lead of a task force on finding new climate funding, suggests taxing cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence as a way to generate climate financing. [The Guardian]

In support of the Halo Trust, a charity dedicated to clearing land mines and explosives, Prince Harry visited Angola and walked through a minefield — echoing the gesture his mother, Princess Diana, made in 1997 to spotlight the deadly legacy of land mines. [BBC]

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