OVER 190 flags have been taken down from a historic building as government officials warn employees to remember who they work for.
The move sparked backlash in the diplomatic community.
The State Department’s main atrium in Washington DC has lost all of its international flags.
The hall previously held 190 flags of countries the US has diplomatic relations with.
Ahead of the celebration for America’s 250th anniversary, the flags were swapped out for all American flags.
“It’s a good reminder of who we work for — the American people!” Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, wrote on X when the flags were unveiled in June.
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The initial change didn’t garner much attention, perhaps because people thought it wasn’t a permanent switch.
But a new post of the lines of American flags went viral, prompting a wave of criticism.
The flags “remind State Department employees who they work for,” Matthew Kroenig, a conservative senior fellow with The Atlantic Council, wrote in the post.
“It’s so much worse than ‘America First,’” said Aaron David Miller, who has worked at the State Department under several administrations.
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“It sends the extraordinary signal to the world that it’s America only.”
In response to the post’s criticism, Kroenig referenced a statement by Joe Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, after the death of one of his predecessors, George Shultz.
Blinken said Shultz, who was the top diplomat during Ronald Reagan’s term, “took pains to remind his fellow diplomats that their first duty was always to the American people.”
Former State Department officials who responded to Kroenig’s post were insulted that employees, especially those who died in service, would have their patriotism questioned.
“The more I think about this, the angrier I get. Next to those flags are the engraved names of fallen State Department officers,” said Richard M. Nephew, who worked under the Biden and Obama administrations.
“How dare you.”
“They are some of the most patriotic people I’ve ever met,” said Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia.
“No one I ever knew working there needed a ‘reminder.'”
The State Department’s chief public affairs officer, Dylan Johnson, defended the decision.
“In no other foreign ministry or state department in the world do they display the flags of hundreds of other countries in place of their own,” he wrote on social media.
“This is the United States Department of State — not the World Department of State.”