‘Friend of Vladimir’ for top US post
"He knows many of the players, and he knows them well. He does massive deals in Russia." Donald Trump, US president-elect
UNITED STATES: Donald Trump is expected to name Rex Tillerson, chief executive of the oil giant Exxon Mobil, as his secretary of state, putting American foreign policy in the hands of a corporate titan with close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The choice would put Trump on a collision course with Republicans on Capitol Hill, who expressed alarm yesterday.
The Florida senator Marco Rubio said on Twitter: ‘‘Being a ‘friend of Vladimir’ is not an attribute I am hoping for from a secretary of state.’’
For the past decade Tillerson has overseen a company so vast and so ingrained in geopolitics that its influence has been likened to that of a nation state.
In Russia he brokered deals to drill the Arctic floor that Putin said could be worth half a trillion dollars.
Tillerson met the presidentelect for about two hours in New York on Sunday.
In a Fox News interview Trump said: ‘‘He’s more than a business executive: he’s a world-class player . . . He’s in charge of, I guess, the largest company in the world.’’
Exxon was the sixth-largest public company in the world by revenues in the year to March, according to Fortune.
Tillerson, a Texan, would be the first energy executive to serve as secretary of state and would face a volatile world suspicious that quests for oil have shaped US foreign policy.
‘‘He knows many of the players, and he knows them well,’’ Trump said. ‘‘He does massive deals in Russia.’’
Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the foreign relations committee, said: ‘‘The Trump administration would be guaranteeing Russia has a willing accomplice in the president’s cabinet, guiding our nation’s foreign policy.’’
Tillerson is believed to have met Putin for the first time in 1999.
In 2013 Russia awarded him the Order of Friendship, a top civilian honour. As head of Exxon he argued against sanctions on Moscow. In 2007, when Moscow stripped Royal Dutch Shell and other foreign players of a huge gas project on Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific, Exxon’s holdings were left intact.
Suzanne Maloney, a former Exxon worker at the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings think tank, said: ‘‘Presumption that Tillerson must be a pro-Putin ideologue because he . . . did business successfully in Putin’s Russia is simplistic and patronising.
‘‘Anyone who manages multibillion-dollar, multi-decade projects needs deep, nuanced understanding of political context.’’
If nominated Tillerson is likely to be questioned at a senate confirmation over allegations that Exxon covered up information about climate change. He is said to have been recommended for the job by Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state under George W Bush, and Bob Gates, the former defence secretary.
Rice and Gates have both been consultants to Exxon. John Bolton, the neo-conservative former ambassador to the UN under George W Bush, was said to be in the running to be Tillerson’s deputy. Tillerson will be 65 in March, the mandatory retirement age at Exxon where he has been for 41 years. He earned $27.3 million last year. - The Times