The State Department needs reform, but killing its Africa bureau only benefits China

The Trump administration reportedly is preparing to halve the State Department’s budget and, in one of the most far-reaching reorganizations in the department’s history, both close nearly every U.S. Embassy in Africa and eliminate the State Department’s nearly 70-year-old Bureau of African Affairs. In its place, the State Department would empower a special envoy who would roam the continent on specific missions that might span the continent’s 54 recognized countries.

While Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied the reports, he may simply be ignorant of President Donald Trump’s plans. Rubio increasingly appears no more in charge of U.S. foreign policy than the secretary of agriculture is. The real power over policy and departmental reform in the Trump administration rests in the White House and among a coterie of aides close to the president. Rubio appears to be like James Woolsey, former President Bill Clinton’s director of Central Intelligence. When a small Cessna crashed onto White House grounds in 1994, pundits joked it must have been piloted by Woolsey because the CIA director had no other way to get into the White House.