By Kevin Nealer

May 21, 2026

Canadians have long been accustomed to entering into any diplomatic exchange substantially outnumbered by their American counterparts.

The diplomatic corps in the US is roughly three times that of Canada’s, but that understates American representation as the U.S. overseas presence includes dozens of other government agencies, bringing the total staff at embassies to over 60,000. Until now.

Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio announced early in his tenure a 20% reduction in the Foreign Service, then eliminated the U.S. Agency for international Development.

Earlier this month, he cut an additional 200 professionals. If the message was lost on career diplomats, the annual May 1 Remembrance Day ceremony recognizing State Department officers who died in the line of duty went unremembered this year. Even the ultimate sacrifice didn’t deserve notice.

A recent Reuters analysis scopes the problem of a diminished and increasingly corrupted diplomacy. Like the Trump approach to pardons or policy access, the pay-to-play model is doing almost as much damage as the “quiet quitting” of alliances to fundamental U.S. global interests.

The recent Ebola outbreak is being attributed in no small part to the destruction of U.S. assistance and early warning capabilities, as well as America abandoning the World Health Organization.

The repeated failure of talks with Iran likely bears some relation to the fact that negotiating teams led by real estate speculators with almost no technical experts present had to learn about the complexities of the nuclear fuel cycle from their Iranian counterparts.

What is the learning in this downsizing for Canada? 

First, that people are policy. High-quality professionals are both hard and soft power in diplomatic relations. Mark Carney’s vision for Canada’s global role requires a capable and activist diplomatic corps and intelligence services. That investment is necessary because – as the recent suspension of the security dialogue reveals – the next two years threaten to be a time of decreasing U.S. reliability.

Second, Canadian counterparts — who’ve been experiencing foreign service cuts of their own at Global Affairs Canada — should adjust their expectations of what is normal and predictable from America. That is the case even where substantive issues are not contentious and goals should be perfectly aligned.

As Canada has already seen in multilateral fora, a gutted U.S. diplomacy and diminished institutional capacity – including at the highest levels, such as the National Security Council – means America’s traditional thought leadership cannot to be taken for granted.

Expect this trend to continue and become more corrosive as another round of national security cuts are likely soon. Whether on trade (CUSMA) or China, inure yourselves to a “We’ll get back to you on that” response from an America policy structure that is marginalized, unconfident, and far too reliant on the whims of one aberrant personality.

Finally, Ottawa needs to put a hard edge on the limits of cooperation when values and interests do not align. Those choices are not just about a new realism with America, but are essential to the authenticity of Canada’s relations with both allies and adversaries.

To the extent that Canadian policy is perceived as just a version of “America lite,” its voice in a remade world order is diminished.

Policy Contributing Writer Kevin Nealer is a Principal of The Scowcroft Group, a Washington, D.C.-based international business advisory firm founded by the late Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford. Its principals generously provide Policy’s regular Letter from Washington and Scowcroft Group Snapshot posts.