Tillerson's State Department Drops Stated Mission to Promote Democracy

In keeping with a recent trend of abandoning key tenets of its stated mission, State Department is rewriting its statement of purpose without any mention of promoting “justice” and “democracy.”

According to internal State Department emails obtained by the Washington Post, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered the department to redefine its stated mission. A draft that was circulated within the department on Friday read, “We promote the security, prosperity, and interests of the American people globally” and said the department will strive to “lead America’s foreign policy through global advocacy, action and assistance to shape a safer, more prosperous world.”

This contrasts with the department’s mission statement from 2016, which defined its purpose as shaping and sustaining “a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster[ing] conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere.”

Some shrugged at the news, noting that the U.S. government has not always truly acted as a promoter of democracy on the world stage.