U.S. Foreign Policy Bureaucracy

The State Department has updated its Foreign Affairs Manual to impose, for the first time, a department‑wide business formal dress code for diplomats and other staff in official meetings with foreign counterparts, requiring a "polished and professional" appearance. Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson told Fox News the move is meant to ensure officials representing the United States project credibility, respect and national dignity, after concerns some personnel had been dressing "pretty informally" in recent years. The change is part of a broader Trump‑era recalibration at State that has replaced Biden‑era flexibility and DEI‑linked evaluation benchmarks with a new "fidelity" precept emphasizing zealous execution of U.S. policy and deference to the chain of command, alongside planned workforce reductions and office consolidations. Critics and some career staff online are already framing the dress rules and loyalty language as symptoms of an increasingly centralized, politicized culture, while supporters argue clearer standards are overdue in a diplomatic corps that speaks for the country on the world stage.