Oren Dorell

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump's team has decided not to offer extensions to U.S. ambassadors who are political appointees, a departure from previous allowances during presidential transitions, the Statement Department said Friday.

In the past two presidential transitions — from the Bill Clinton administration to George W. Bush and from Bush to President Obama — a handful of ambassadors requested and were granted extensions for family reasons each time, State Department spokesman John Kirby told USA TODAY. Trump’s team decided not to offer extensions this time around, Kirby said.

The policy affects 30% of U.S. ambassadors who are political appointees stationed in countries around the world, Kirby said. Their roles will be filled by deputy chiefs of mission in each embassy who are career diplomats, until a new ambassador is appointed.

The remaining 70% of ambassadors who are career civil servants are not affected, but Trump’s incoming team will decide how to fill ambassador posts based on how they seek to implement their world view, Kirby said.

All political appointees at State, including Kirby, a former Pentagon spokesman who moved to the department when he retired as a Navy admiral, were required by the Obama White House to submit resignation letters by Dec. 7, with their last day to be Jan. 20, Inauguration Day for the new president, Kirby said.

As a political appointee, “you have no expectation to stay behind after the inauguration of the new president,” he said.

The directive, first reported by the New York Times, threatens to leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in nations like Germany, Canada and Britain.

According to the Times:

"Mr. Trump, by contrast, has taken a hard line against leaving any of President Obama’s political appointees in place as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20 with a mission of dismantling many of his predecessor’s signature foreign and domestic policy achievements. 'Political' ambassadors, many of them major donors who are nominated by virtue of close ties with the president, almost always leave at the end of his term; ambassadors who are career diplomats often remain in their posts."