Tillerson’s time
The secretary of state’s exit was inevitable
President Donald Trump’s replacement of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by CIA Director Mike Pompeo needs to be seen from different perspectives.
The first and most important is from the point of view of foreign officials, America’s friends, allies and foes, who normally see the secretary of state as the senior Cabinet official short of the president with whom they can raise serious matters of concern. The secretary of state is also third behind the president and vice president in order of rank within the executive branch. In other words, the secretary of state is important, not only to the outside world but also within the U.S. constitutional structure.
Mr. Tillerson, whatever his shortcomings, looked in Mr. Trump’s Cabinet to be one of the more competent appointees. He came to the State Department having been CEO of Exxon Mobil, an international corporation comparable in organization and structure to the Department of State. Its headquarters are in the United States and its enterprises and interests are found in many countries.
As secretary of state, however, Mr. Tillerson quickly stumbled. He tried to reorganize the department before he understood it. He was not prompt to fill the positions of senior subordinates at the department. The world is full of issues, countries, organizations and people. The only way to deal with the complexity of what any secretary of state faces is to appoint trusted people and then delegate some authority to them. Mr. Tillerson was apparently not very good at this, even though his corporate experience should have served him well.
Mr. Trump’s dismissal of Mr. Tillerson, although it may have seemed abrupt, should not be a surprise. The president had been undercutting him with public comments on policy for some time, including the pending North Korea talks. Altogether, the two never connected on any level — it was a mismatch almost from the start.
Substantively, it will be hard to say what contribution Mr. Tillerson made to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The tenure of secretaries of state is normally long, partly because it takes a while for them and their international colleagues to get used to each other. That bonding is considered by most presidents to be normal and a positive phenomenon.
With an equally short tenure at the CIA, Mr. Pompeo has not been able to build a legacy there. The secrecy of the organization and deep embedment of personnel and methods make outside judgments difficult, but most reports point to his success as a manager. The Republican-majority Senate won’t drag its feet on confirmation of Mr. Pompeo, a former congressman from Kansas, in spite of disaffection on Capitol Hill with some of Mr. Trump’s actions, including most recently the steel and aluminum tariffs. America needs a functioning secretary of state, particularly with Mr. Trump planning to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.