State Dept unveils sweeping rebrand with makeover focused on ‘America First’

The State Department unveiled its plan to eradicate “brand confusion” and “re-anchor the visual identity” of overseas activities while embracing “America First.”

Less than six months have elapsed since President Donald Trump’s second term kicked off, and supporters and detractors alike, albeit for different reasons, remain gobsmacked over how much the administration has taken on. This was especially true at the State Department, where amid Sec. Marco Rubio’s efforts to streamline operations, a rebranding initiative was launched Tuesday to ensure “America First” came to mind when “we’re contributing something great” abroad.

In addition to working toward consolidating and cutting the more than 700 bureaus and offices of the department, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie told Fox News Digital that the days of having separate logos, often depicting no association with the United States, were over.

“The redesign is very simple, and that was to recenter and re-anchor the visual identity of American efforts overseas in the American flag,” explained the State Department official. “There’s some things you look at, and you have no clue that’s associated with the United States government at all, and that’s obviously contrary to our purposes.”

“If we’re contributing something great overseas, we want that positivity and that contribution to be immediately visually distinguished as something associated with the United States,” he added, as rebranding compliance would be expected no later than Oct. 1, 2025.

The latest from the department came as Rubio declared Tuesday that, “The era of government-sanctioned inefficiency is OVER,” as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officially stopped providing foreign assistance.

“Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests,” added the secretary as, “Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies–and which advance American interests–will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency.”

It’s Done: Rubio officially sticks a fork in USAID as Bush, Obama and Bono cry in their beer https://t.co/tcN6I8Txwj

— BPR (@BIZPACReview) July 2, 2025

These actions from Rubio’s department followed his April announcement of a concerted effort to make his department “America First,” as “In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition.”

“Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth, and costs have soared. But far from seeing a return on investment, taxpayers have seen less effective and efficient diplomacy,” he said at the time. “The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.”

While it remains to be seen exactly how the rebranding will unfold, support rang out as a sampling of “America First” messaging was shared Tuesday in a post that read, “Trade over aid. Opportunity over dependency. Investment over assistance. A new era of global partnership,” over an image of a worker carrying a box out of a warehouse emblazoned with the caption, “Provided by the United States of America.”

Trade over aid.
Opportunity over dependency.
Investment over assistance.

A new era of global partnership. pic.twitter.com/NLhlIBVspS

— Department of State (@StateDept) July 1, 2025

Finally. An America First State Department means standing for our values abroad not apologizing for them. Diplomacy with strength pride and purpose is back. The world better get used to it.

— For God & Country (@PatriotVigil) July 2, 2025

Marco cares about us here at home. Not globalism like previous Secretary of States

— The Iron Lady (@ironwitch_) July 2, 2025

This is shift we drastically needed

— Toki (@TokiBusa) July 1, 2025

Absolutely Brilliant Strategy by President Trump and his amazing team. Thank you

— Shavana (@ShavanaRao) July 2, 2025

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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