By Joanna Snearly, BFF Member (August 7, 2026)

The 2nd Trump Administration has made unprecedented progress in the reform of Foreign Assistance in the U.S. Department of State (Department). The elimination of many wasteful programs, the consolidation of USAID into the Department, and a reorganization has established a strong foundation for a foreign assistance system in alignment with U.S. foreign policy goals. This more disciplined use of public funds has increased accountability to the American people. As a next step, a more streamlined administrative structure for federal assistance programs (grants/cooperative agreements) would provide support for this new foundation.

Max Primorac (July 24, 2026)

In 2026, the State Department pledged $3.8 billion to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) without conditioning the funds on White House directives barring aid for abortion, gender ideology, DEI, and climate agendas—a sharp reversal of the Trump Administration’s foreign aid reforms.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Tressa Rae Finerty, a U.S. career diplomat, to be the Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). While most Americans would regard this an obscure diplomatic appointment, the decision carries significant implications for President Donald Trump’s efforts to thwart global illegal immigration. Guterres intentionally rejected the White House’s nominee and selected someone whom he knows to be clearly out of step with Trump’s objectives for reforming the corrupt international refugee business.

By Simon Hankinson, BFF Co-Founder and Fellow

So, who are we really? In 2024 three retired FSOs started the BFF with a common point of view, summed up in our eight basic principles. We wanted as wide a tent of opinion as possible consistent with loving our country and wishing it prosperity and strength. I encourage readers to decide for themselves what the principles represent. I’d summarize them as conservative and resistant to recent “woke” ideologies.

By Jeremy Carl, BFF Fellow

I read with interest the op-eds in the Foreign Service Journal in March/April by the former President of the American Foreign Service Association Eric Rubin and current President of the American Academy of Diplomacy Ronald Neumann, both strongly criticizing the Ben Franklin Fellowship (BFF) amidst a more general critique of the foreign service under Trump. Because of the distinguished pedigree of the authors and because the substance of these critiques have recently been amplified and further legitimized by the New York Times, it is worth dissecting them in detail. These critiques represent, in many ways, the wrongheaded groupthink on BFF and the Trump administration more generally that is representative of many members of the Foreign and Civil Service foreign affairs community.

How the Foreign Service learned the wrong lesson from the right case — and what the Army figured out instead.

By Zed Tarar, BFF Member

Conservative career officials are fighting to break the globalist-woke mindset that is deeply ingrained in the U.S. foreign affairs bureaucracy.

By Phillip Linderman