Rumors foment about future of Tillerson
Amid upheaval at White House, he’s often at odds with the president
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Washington with the promise that the same steady calm and political acumen that allowed him to rise to the top of Exxon Mobil would translate into leading the country’s diplomatic ranks.
But six months in, Tillerson is the latest official whose future in the Trump administration has come into question, as he tries to counsel a president prone to upending U.S. foreign policy on a dime while struggling to negotiate Washington’s notoriously complex corridors of power.
Tensions came into public view last month when Tillerson’s efforts to negotiate a truce between Qatar and other Gulf States was undercut by a tweet from President Donald Trump. Weeks later, officials within the White House leaked to the press that Tillerson blew up at a top aide over the slow pace of staff appointments to his department.
It all came to the forefront last week when CNN reported Tillerson was considering leaving the State Department, citing sources close to the secretary. A State Department spokesman was forced to explain that Tillerson had no plans to leave.
“It would have been tough enough for anyone without Washington experience to come and be secretary of state and
combine that with a White House new to Washington and a president with his personality, the combination of these things is pretty lethal,” said Gary Schmitt, a former top foreign intelligence official in the Reagan administration and now a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “I’m not surprised he’s had a rough a go as he’s had.”
Tillerson declined an interview request.
‘He’s a steady hand’
Speculation over Tillerson’s future comes after more upheaval in the Trump administration, which, over the course of just more than a week, saw the departures of Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who resigned Friday.
In between, Attorney General Sessions has been sharply criticized by Trump in interviews and Twitter posts in connection with a special prosecutor’s investigation into connections between Russia and the Trump campaign.
People who know Tillerson express skepticism about reports that he would leave the State Department before the year is out — playfully labelled a “Rexit” by the media. Richard Fisher, a friend and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said Tillerson tended to be “tightlipped.” It would be out of character, he said, for Tillerson to express discomfort with Trump to anyone — with the exception of his wife, Rhenda.
“I cannot imagine him saying anything of a complaining nature,” Fisher said. “He’s a steady hand. Always has been, always will.”
Tillerson has at times struggled to win over the president to his way of thinking. In a muchwatched speech in Europe in May, Trump did not reaffirm the principle of the NATO alliance that an attack on one member was an attack on all — forcing U.S. officials to reassure their foreign counterparts that support for that central tenet was implicit in his appearance. In June, despite objections from Tillerson and other top officials, Trump said he would withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement on climate change.
Then, as Tillerson was trying to broker an end to a blockade enacted against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, Trump tweeted in support of the Saudis and lambasted Qatar for “funding extremism.” Qatar, which is home to the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, has been accused by its neighbors of supporting terrorists and is refusing to meet demands that include the shuttering of the Arab news broadcaster al-Jazeera.
Tillerson “clearly cannot speak with confidence on behalf of the administration,” said John Alterman, who served in the State Department under former President George W. Bush and is now a senior vice president at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“He has tens of thousands of people (at the State Department) who would leap to do what he wants them to do if they only understood what he wants.”
An Eagle Scout
Speculation among Washington observers of tension between Tillerson and the president only grew last week after Trump’s attack on the “fake news media” and criticism of former president Barack Obama in a speech at the Boy Scouts of America’s annual jamboree in West Virginia, which prompted the scouts’ president to apologize Thursday to “those in our scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree.”
Tillerson, who achieved scouting’s highest rank, Eagle, served as president of the organization. In a speech to the jamboree days before Trump’s arrival, he credited scouting with teaching him, “everything about living a principled, values-based life.” Tillerson has made no public statement on Trump’s speech.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Within the nation’s foreign policy establishment — Democrat and Republican alike — Tillerson was supposed to be a stabilizing force in the Trump administration. Along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, he was viewed as keeping U.S. foreign policy from veering into the isolationist and nationalist agenda Trump promoted on the campaign trail.
In speeches and interviews on topics such as Russia and China, Tillerson has expressed views in line with U.S. foreign policy going back decades, said Joe Barnes, a former diplomat with the State Department and now a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute.
“We tend to believe in strengthening international institutions, because by strengthening them we strengthen ourselves. And in maintaining close alliances allows us to leverage our power. And security policy requires the maintenance of large military establishment,” he said. “There’s nothing I’ve seen or heard him say to suggest he would make a substantial break from mainstream U.S. foreign policy.”
For all the palace intrigue around the White House and the leaks about which cabinet members have found themselves on the wrong side of the president, Tillerson has managed to stay remarkably clear of Trump’s Twitter feed.
He is a regular presence in the Oval Office and was at Trump’s side earlier this month when the president met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin for what was his Trump’s most high profile meeting with a foreign leader since taking office. “He’s established a level of trust with the president,” said Alterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But at the same time, former state department officials say, Tillerson has struggled to navigate the tradition-bound bureaucracy of State Department headquarters — known as Foggy Bottom.
Lacks seasoned help
Populated with career officers who run the day-to-day business of foreign affairs from one administration the next, it’s rhythms and culture is not learned on the fly. And with the majority of the 22 assistant secretary appointments requiring Senate confirmation still unfilled, Tillerson is lacking in seasoned help.
The former Exxon CEO tried to hire Elliot Abrams, who served in the State Department under Ronald Reagan and as a foreign policy adviser to George W. Bush, to be his second in command. But the White House has chafed at attempts to bring in the established foreign policy hands that usually find places in a Republican administration, many of whom, like Abrams, criticized Trump on the campaign trail.
After the White House rejected Abrams, Tillerson selected John J. Sullivan, who had worked in Defense and Commerce departments during the George W. Bush administration, as deputy secretary of state. Sullivan was confirmed by the Senate in May.
“If you look at his résumé, he doesn’t jump off the page as deputy,” Schmitt said. “It’s hard to know if Tillerson could be a good secretary of state because the administration is running things in such a hamhanded way.”