President Donald Trump’s top diplomat in Africa, Troy Fitrell, will retire from the State Department next month, and Jonathan Pratt, the Bureau of African Affairs deputy assistant secretary, will take his position.
“After a long and distinguished career, the Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs Senior Bureau Official Ambassador Troy Fitrell is retiring in mid-July as planned,” a State Department spokesperson told The Hill in an emailed statement on Thursday.
“The Bureau of African Affairs Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jonathan Pratt will step into the Senior Bureau Official role after Ambassador Fitrell’s departure,” the spokesperson added.
Fitrell, a foreign service diplomat, formerly served as the US ambassador to Guinea. He has held various positions at the State Department throughout Africa, including director of the Offices of Western and Southern African Affairs. He also served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in the US embassies in Ethiopia and Mauritius.
Fitrell has been the head of the State Department’s African bureau since the assistant secretary, a Senate-confirmed job, has yet to be filled, The Hill reported.
Fitrell, who has been a diplomat for over 30 years, recently stated that the Trump administration is shifting the United States’ approach to Africa from “one rooted primarily in development assistance to a strategy that prioritizes robust commercial engagement.”
The government views commerce as a vehicle to fight Chinese and Russian dominance on the continent.
Pratt, who will follow Fitrell, previously served as the United States ambassador to Djibouti from 2021-2023. He also held additional missions with the State Department, serving in Pakistan, Sudan, and Angola.
The president has been busy this week.
Trump dismissed all members of the supposedly non-partisan Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation via email sent last month.
“On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation is terminated effective immediately,” White House liaison to the State Department Cate Dillon wrote in one of the dismissal emails, the Washington Post reported.
No reason was given by Dillon, according to the outlet. However, after former committee member and Canadian-American historian Timothy Naftali announced his dismissal on X, critics on the right pointed to past statements they viewed as evidence of his anti-Trump and anti-American bias.
The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation guides the State Department on the publication of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, the official documentary record of U.S. foreign policy, according to the Office of the Historian.
The committee is responsible for ensuring that all papers, letters, and reports included in the FRUS series are carefully selected, accurately reflect historical events, and are published on time. It also oversees the proper declassification and public release of relevant documents.
Naftali isn’t the only former member facing scrutiny for alleged anti-Trump and anti-American bias. The committee’s chairman, James Goldgeier—a professor at American University’s School of International Service—has also come under similar criticism.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval numbers are rising fast, and it’s not just a small bump in what’s another sign that the tide is turning as more Americans wake up to what’s really going on.
In April, a joint national poll from InsiderAdvantage and Trafalgar Group showed President Trump holding a narrow 2-point lead in approval versus disapproval among likely voters. Out of 1,200 respondents, 46% approved of Trump’s performance, 44% disapproved, and 10% were undecided.
But that was then.
By the end of May and into early June, Trafalgar’s latest poll showed a major shift. This time, 54% of likely voters said they either approved or strongly approved of Trump’s job as president.
Only 46% disapproved or strongly disapproved. That’s an 8-point swing—and it came despite the survey slightly oversampling Democrat voters compared to Republicans.
Over at Rasmussen, their presidential approval tracker told a similar story. On June 2, Trump’s approval sat at 53%, just 3 points below where he stood during inauguration week.
