Trump blitz leaves US government workers feeling 'under siege'

by Elodie SOINARD

Stunned American federal workers feel "under siege" after President Donald Trump issued a flurry of orders aimed at reforming the US government, some have told AFP, as they grapple with the Republican's right-wing agenda.

In the eight days since his return to the White House, Trump has launched a series of head-snapping moves dismantling programs to combat inequality and environmental injustice, firing workers carrying them out, and further slashing government spending at home and abroad.

The ripple effects on the wider American population are yet to be seen -- but for many of the three million federal workers tasked with carrying out US government policies, the effect has been swift and destabilizing.

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"People are crying in their supervisors' offices, wondering what might happen to their jobs," one employee at the Department of the Interior -- a remote worker whose own future is now in question after Trump ordered all federal employees back to the office -- told AFP.

Employees were already anxious and fearful, she said, after Trump made repeated promises to target spending on the campaign trail last year.

"And when the executive orders just kept coming, people go, 'Wow, this is way worse than we envisioned.'"

She, like others who spoke to AFP, agreed to do so only under the condition of anonymity.

"Everyone is kind of somber, everyone's kind of bracing for impact. There's a lot of uncertainty," said one remote worker from outside the capital, Washington, who has been employed by the federal government since 2014.

"You kind of feel like you're under siege," he said.

Another, a woman at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, said employees were grasping for information.

"A lot of rumors are circulating in the corridors, everyone gets together to talk about what we've heard from our supervisors," she said -- though it was hard to tell what was true.

"We're worried about budget cuts," she said.

- 'Rat out our colleagues' -

It's not just the cuts.

Several of the civil servants who spoke to AFP described an email that ordered employees to report if any federal workers were concealing efforts to continue with so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The programs are meant to combat inequality, but Trump has complained that they discriminate against white people -- white men in particular -- and vowed to end them.

"I've never seen like an email that just seems so kind of unprofessional and aggressive," said the remote worker, who has been with the government since 2014.

"It feels like the gloves are off ... and he's kind of just going more for his worst kind of initiatives," he continued, referring to Trump.

"We are being told to rat out our colleagues," said the Interior Department employee.

"People have taken to using their personal communications because they're worried that we're being surveilled somehow. That is crazy," she said.

"Everybody is looking over their shoulder. Everybody is so worried about trying to figure out how to navigate the cascade of implications ... All this angst is actually preventing the work that people are paid to do," added one long-term senior employee with the Commerce Department.

- 'Can't bully me' -

Before he even took office, Trump announced that he was tasking his backer Elon Musk, the world's richest man, which steering a "Department of Government Efficiency" that would restructure the federal executive branch and gut public spending.

Around two-thirds of federal spending goes towards programs that Trump would not be able to cut, or those he has pledged not to, including Social Security and Medicare.

That has not stopped him from freezing large swathes of federal aid funding, throwing rafts of programs -- and the employees who carry them out -- into disarray at home and abroad.

"It is literally, 'I, as the leader of these agencies, am going to come into the home and burn it down,'" said the Interior Department employee.

"Half the people are like, I need to hold my head up, because I know that's what you're trying to do, and I'm not going to let you to let you win. And then the rest are like, wow, this is just brutal," she said.

The goal is to "make the government as inefficient as they claim it is," said the remote worker who had been with the government since 2014.

"In a way, it's making me more resolved," he said.

Trump "can't bully me around."