Foreign policy and sanctions

Executive Order 14150: America First Policy Directive to the Secretary of State

President: Donald J. Trump

Directed the Secretary of State to align State Department policies, programs, personnel and operations with the administration’s foreign-policy priorities.

Status: In effect.

Is Executive Order 14150 still in effect? Yes. Active; continuing departmental policy direction.

A document marked EO 14150 stands beside a globe, diplomatic papers and a government building.
Foreign-policy direction, illustrated symbolically; the papers do not represent a specific treaty, funding award or completed diplomatic action. EO Explained · site-generated editorial illustration · not documentary evidence.

What does Executive Order 14150 do?

This brief order directs the Secretary of State to issue guidance, as soon as practicable, bringing the State Department’s policies, programs, personnel and operations into line with the administration’s “America First” foreign policy. It does not itself name countries, cancel programs, appropriate money or impose sanctions. Those concrete changes require separate presidential, departmental or congressional authority.

Later primary evidence reviewed September 24, 2026: The Secretary of State issued a foreign-affairs determination expressly framed as carrying out this order's policy direction. Official source. The cited steps do not establish every downstream effect.

Administration position: “America First” and the statement that the policy champions core American interests are the administration’s framing. The objective fact is that the order establishes a broad policy direction rather than a list of self-executing program changes.

Reading the operative provisions of Executive Order 14150

The operative instruction is concentrated in Section 2: the Secretary of State must issue guidance, as soon as practicable, addressing four parts of the department’s work—policies, programs, personnel, and operations. The order does not supply a list of countries to favor, programs to end, employees to reassign, or sanctions to impose. Those are decisions that would have to appear in the subsequent guidance or in a separate legal instrument.

Section 3 preserves powers assigned to agencies by law, OMB’s budget functions, and the requirement that implementation remain lawful and subject to appropriations. This makes EO 14150 a department-wide policy direction, not a freestanding rule for private conduct. The later State Department determinations cited above show how the administration connected subsequent instruments to the directive; each instrument still needs to be read on its own terms. Read Executive Order 14150 in the Federal Register.

SignedJanuary 20, 2025
Responsible officialSecretary of State
ScopeState Department policies, programs, personnel and operations
DeadlineAs soon as practicable

Before and after

Before the order

State Department policy and operations reflected statutes, appropriations, treaties, prior presidential directions and departmental decisions then in force.

A change in presidential foreign-policy priorities does not by itself repeal statutory duties or treaty obligations.

After the order

The Secretary of State was instructed to issue department-wide alignment guidance.

Later foreign-policy, staffing, aid, sanctions and organizational decisions must be evaluated through their own legal instruments; they should not be treated as having occurred solely because EO 14150 was signed.

The Secretary of State issued a foreign-affairs determination expressly framed as carrying out this order's policy direction.

Who had to do what

Agency / officeActionTiming / position
Secretary of StateIssue guidance aligning State Department policy, programs, personnel and operations with the new foreign-policy directionAs soon as practicable
State Department componentsImplement any valid departmental guidance within existing legal authorityAs directed in later instruments

What happened next

EO 14150 signed and the policy direction took effect.

Order published in the Federal Register.

The order remains an operative high-level policy directive; it contains no measurable completion date.

Later primary evidence reviewed: The Secretary of State issued a foreign-affairs determination expressly framed as carrying out this order's policy direction.