Thread: Trump Picks Rex Tillerson, Exxon C.E.O., as Secretary of State

Trump Picks Rex Tillerson, Exxon C.E.O., as Secretary of State

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MAGGIE HABERMAN
DEC. 12, 2016

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump settled Monday on Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to be his secretary of state, transition officials said. In naming him, the president-elect is dismissing bipartisan concerns that Mr. Tillerson, the globe-trotting leader of an energy giant, has a too-cozy relationship with Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia.

Mr. Trump planned to announce the selection on Tuesday morning, bringing to an end his public and chaotic deliberations over the nation’s top diplomat — a process that at times veered from rewarding Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of his most loyal supporters, to musing about whether Mitt Romney, one of his most vicious critics, might be forgiven.

Instead, Mr. Trump has decided to risk what looks to be a bruising confirmation fight in the Senate.

In the past several days, Republican and Democratic lawmakers had warned that Mr. Tillerson would face intense scrutiny over his two-decade relationship with Russia, which awarded him its Order of Friendship in 2013, and with Mr. Putin.

The hearings will also put a focus on Exxon Mobil’s business dealings with Moscow. The company has billions of dollars in oil contracts that can go forward only if the United States lifts sanctions against Russia, and Mr. Tillerson’s stake in Russia’s energy industry could create a very blurry line between his interests as an oilman and his role as America’s leading diplomat.

Mr. Tillerson has been publicly skeptical about the sanctions, which have halted some of Exxon Mobil’s biggest projects in Russia, including an agreement with the state oil company to explore and pump in Siberia that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said on Saturday that Mr. Tillerson’s connections to Mr. Putin were “a matter of concern to me” and promised to examine them closely if he were nominated.

“Vladimir Putin is a thug, bully and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying,” Mr. McCain said on Fox News.

Mr. Trump has fanned speculation about his choice for secretary of state for weeks. In the end, he discarded not only Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Romney, but also an endlessly changing list that at times included Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee; David H. Petraeus, the former Army general and C.I.A. director; and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor and presidential candidate in 2012.

Mr. Romney, Mr. Petraeus and Mr. Corker, the three leading runners-up, all received calls late Monday informing them of Mr. Trump’s decision, according to people familiar with the president-elect’s final choice.

He settled on Mr. Tillerson, a deal maker who has spent the past four decades at Exxon, much of it in search of oil and gas agreements in troubled parts of the world. A native of Wichita Falls, Tex., who speaks with a strong Texas twang, Mr. Tillerson, 64, runs a company with operations in about 50 countries, and has cut deals to expand business in Venezuela, Qatar, Kurdistan and elsewhere.

If confirmed as secretary of state, Mr. Tillerson would face a new challenge: nurturing alliances around the world that are built less on deals and more on diplomacy.

That could prove to be a special test when it comes to Russia, where Mr. Tillerson has fought for years to strengthen connections through business negotiations worth billions of dollars. Under his leadership, Exxon has entered into joint ventures with Rosneft, a Russian-backed oil company, and donated to the country’s health and social programs.

In his new role, Mr. Tillerson would have to manage the difficult relationship between the United States and Mr. Putin’s Russia, including the economic sanctions imposed after Moscow intervened in Ukraine and occupied Crimea. Last month, President Obama and European leaders agreed to keep sanctions in place until Mr. Putin agrees to a cease-fire and to the withdrawal of heavy weapons from front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Other Republicans who have challenged Mr. Tillerson’s potential selection include Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who expressed concern in a Twitter post on Monday about his relationship with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Trump favored Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, initially, but quickly grew weary of his penchant for drawing outsize media attention. Mr. Trump was also troubled by reports of Mr. Giuliani’s business entanglements overseas. And some of the president-elect’s closest advisers, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, saw Mr. Giuliani as a poor fit for the job.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet and top staff are shaping up to be a mix of wealthy Washington outsiders, Republican insiders and former military officers who have been critical of the Obama administration.

That led to interest in Mr. Romney, who had called Mr. Trump a “fraud” and a “phony” during the campaign. Mr. Romney had also highlighted Russia as a danger to United States interests during the 2012 race.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Romney made peace, meeting twice and speaking periodically by phone. But some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including his last campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, warned publicly in a series of television interviews that some of his supporters would quickly drift away if Mr. Romney were chosen for the job.

Mr. Tillerson emerged as a contender on the strong recommendations of James A. Baker III, the secretary of state under President George Bush, and Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, according to a person briefed on the process.

Mr. Kushner and Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, argued strongly for Mr. Tillerson, and the president-elect was intrigued.

Mr. Trump met with Mr. Tillerson for more than two hours on Saturday at Trump Tower in Manhattan. To his aides, Mr. Trump described Mr. Tillerson as in a different “league” than his other options.

Mr. Romney acknowledged late Monday night in a Facebook post that he had been passed over, writing, “It was an honor to have been considered for Secretary of State of our great country.”

“My discussions with President-elect Trump have been both enjoyable and enlightening,” Mr. Romney wrote.

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/us...rump.html?_r=0

Trump picks ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state

By Steven Mufson, Philip Rucker and Karoun Demirjian
December 13 at 12:12 AM

President-elect Donald Trump has picked as his secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, setting up a possible confrontation with members of his own party in the Senate, according to a person involved in the transition.

Since Tillerson’s name emerged as a candidate for the post, leading Republicans have expressed reservations about his years of work in Russia and the Middle East on behalf of the multinational petroleum company.

GOP advisers have warned that a growing number of Republican senators may be unwilling to vote to confirm Tillerson because of his ties to Russia. While Senate Democrats cannot filibuster Trump’s Cabinet picks, Republicans have only 52 votes in the Senate, leaving them in potential jeopardy if Democrats unite in opposition to Tillerson. It will take at least 50 votes to confirm a nominee, plus Vice President-elect Mile Pence casting a tiebreaking vote.

Yet Trump, after a protracted selection process that saw him also considering 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has decided to press ahead with Tillerson. Like others in the new Trump Cabinet, the ExxonMobil chief executive lacks any experience in government but will try to apply his experience in the business world to the realm of diplomacy. And he has worked extensively around the globe and built relationships with such leaders as Russian President Vladi*mir Putin.

The Trump team is planning an aggressive public relations campaign to win confirmation for Tillerson and dispel what it sees as a false narrative about his ties to Russia, a person involved in the transition said. Former secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and James Baker are planning to go public Tuesday morning with their support for Tillerson, as is former defense secretary Robert Gates. Former vice president Richard B. Cheney also is supportive and may advocate for his confirmation.

Gates was the first person to raise Tillerson as a secretary of state possibility with Trump during a meeting at Trump Tower, the transition official added. Trump did not know much about Tillerson but started chewing over the idea. He invited Tillerson for a meeting and the two global dealmakers hit it off. They recognized similarities in each other, and the more they talked, the more they liked each other, the transition official said.

Rice, who has served on the board of Chevron, then became a strong advocate for Tillerson. She and Trump spoke about Tillerson by phone Monday as Trump made his final decision.

One argument that the defenders of Tillerson — who during his career has also cultivated leaders of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Qatar — will probably make is that he stands firm in business negotiations in Russia and elsewhere.

“One of the things I know about the Russian government: I’m very predictable. And they know if I say no it means no. And talking about it more isn’t going to change that. No is still going to be no,” Tillerson said in a talk last year at the Texas Tech business school. “Over the years we’ve earned each other’s respect. Then when you say yes, you know we’ll follow through. It means something.”

Weighing whether to lift economic sanctions on Russia will be one of the first things on Tillerson’s plate, given Trump’s desire to smooth relations with the Kremlin. International economic sanctions, imposed after Russia annexed Crimea and gave support to insurgents in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, have fallen heavily on financial institutions and ExxonMobil.

ExxonMobil, which has a profitable operation on Sakhalin island in eastern Russia, had begun a drilling program in the Arctic’s Kara Sea, where Exxon made a find, and had agreed to explore shale oil areas of West Siberia and deep waters of the Black Sea. If sanctions are lifted, Tillerson told analysts this year, the Black Sea drilling would probably be the first to be restarted.

While ExxonMobil complained privately to the Obama administration about the sanctions, the company has abided by the law.

“They understand the situation. We understand the situation,” Tillerson said of the Kremlin when asked at an oil analysts’ meeting this year about whether Exxon would resume work in Russia if sanctions were lifted.

In addition, Tillerson will have to deal with climate issues because the State Department is the lead agency in international climate negotiations. Unlike Trump, Tillerson has said that he believes that climate change is real and has favored a revenue-neutral carbon tax of more than $20 a ton.

But environmental groups charge that Exxon knew about the harmful effects of fossil fuels as much as 40 years ago and failed to inform investors and the public, possibly in violation of securities laws. The New York and Massachusetts attorneys general and a range of non-governmental organizations are locked in battle over the charges.

Human rights experts are also unhappy about Tillerson’s nomination, noting that ExxonMobil does business in countries ruled by autocrats or dictators including countries in the Middle East, Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan.

“I don’t think that companies’ role is to play politics,” said Pavel Molchanov, oil analyst at the investment firm Raymond James. “They’re there to invest in resources. Saying that he personally has some special feelings toward Russia just because Exxon has invested there is probably overstating the case.”

But that might not be the way lawmakers see it.

At least four Republican senators have already publicly expressed their concerns with Tillerson’s Russia ties. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) called the fact that Putin awarded Tillerson the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship in 2013 “unnerving,” while Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) questioned Tillerson’s judgment on CNN on Monday noting, “I don’t see how anybody could be a friend of this old time KGB agent,” referring to Putin.

Established in 1994 by the president at the time, Boris N. Yeltsin, the Order of Friendship has been handed out by Russian leaders to figures as diverse as pianist Van Cliburn, former Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt, and Raymond E. Johnson, founder of the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis.

Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) also tweeted over the weekend that “being a ‘friend of Vladimir’ is not an attribute I am hoping for from a Secretary of State,” while a spokesman for Sen. James Lankford (Okla.) said he “has a lot of questions about Mr. Tillerson and his ties to Russia.”

Of the four, only Rubio sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which first must approve Tillerson’s nomination before it can head to the floor. Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who was in the running to be Trump’s Secretary of State, tweeted over the weekend that Tillerson “is a very impressive individual.”

But Republicans outnumber Democrats by only one on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, giving Democrats an opportunity to block one of Trump’s most important Cabinet picks if they stay united in voting against Tillerson’s nomination. Democrats would not say if they expect their committee members to hold rank. But if they can, they only need one Republican to vote against Tillerson’s nomination to keep him from proceeding to the Senate floor for a full confirmation vote.

Earlier Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged Tillerson’s relationship with Putin and his friendly attitude toward Russia, but played down the idea that it would influence policy.

“As to the allegations of whether his attitude to the Russian Federation is good or bad: being secretary of state is very different from leading a company, even a very big one. Therefore, any, so to speak, sympathies become secondary,” Peskov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as telling reporters.

“The only thing that remains here is readiness to demonstrate a constructive attitude and be professional,” he said. “We are hoping that this is what will happen.”

Peskov said that Tillerson and Putin had met on several occasions but offered only measured comments about their relationship.

“Indeed, he repeatedly had contacts with our representatives due to his work in the post of one of the world’s largest oil companies; he fulfills his duties very professionally,” Peskov said.

David Filipov and Paul Kane contributed to this report. Filipov reported from Moscow.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.322b1e3d6e70

For those hating on Russia because of Crimea:

Crimean public opinion

A joint survey by American government agency Broadcasting Board of Governors and polling firm Gallup was taken during April 2014.[248] It polled 500 residents of Crimea. The survey found that 82.8% of those polled believed that the results of the Crimean status referendum reflected the views of most Crimeans, whereas 6.7% said that it did not. 73.9% of those polled said that they thought that the annexation would have a positive impact on their lives, whereas 5.5% said that it would not. 13.6% said that they did not know.[248]

A comprehensive poll released on 8 May 2014 by the Pew Research Centre surveyed Crimean opinions on the annexation.[249] Despite international criticism of 16 March referendum on Crimean status, 91% of those Crimeans polled thought that the vote was free and fair, and 88% said that the Ukrainian government should recognise the results.[249]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexa...ian_Federation

Crimea has been part of Russia since the 1700's, the majority of the population is Russian. The peninsula was gifted to the Ukraine by Kruschev in the 1950's. It was not the right decision for the people. They are Russian. So when things started happening in 2014, the leaders in Crimea joined with Russia to effectuate a rejoining of the Russian nation. They held referendums.

These two polls show that the people of Crimea wanted to be back with Russia and are happy with that outcome.

This wasn't our dog-fight and we should have stayed out of it. If, of course, Russia was to invade Ukraine, that would be an entirely different matter, Ukraine was never part of Russia, it was always Ukraine. It became part of the Soviet Union but Ukrainians are not Russians, they are Ukrainians.

The way it is now seems to me to be the way it should be. So the US should not use sanctions against Russia over Crimea. If there are other things they've done to warrant sanctions, I don't know about them, but if it's only about Crimea, sanctions are wrong. The Crimeans got what they wanted, to be part of Russia again. They voted as was required. The elections were fair and legal and everyone is happy with the outcome.

We're supposed to be for the people whenever it's possible. The Crimea situation seems to me to be one of those where we should support the people of Crimea. If you read the wikipedia article, 50% of the Ukrainian forces sent to fight off Russian troops ended up defecting to Crimea to be part of Russia.

I think our politicians and the corrupt media need to support the people of Crimea who after almost 70 years of separation by "gift" have rejoined their homeland of Russia because that's what they elected to do.

I hope the people of Ukraine will accept that and resume their tourist visits to the peninsula. There is no reason at all for Russia and the Ukraine to be at odds with each other. They should be friendly neighbors.

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 7h7 hours ago

The thing I like best about Rex Tillerson is that he has vast experience at dealing successfully with all types of foreign governments.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?...Ctwgr%5Eauthor

And I can think of no better reason than that. You add that to his vast business knowledge, technical civil engineering education and background, management experience, devotion to his employer through the years, 41 years with the same company which shows a great deal of loyalty and stability, and the fact that he's a great American from TEXAS, where your word truly is your bond, no means no, yes means yes, and they even have handshake laws on deals you can take to court, so to me this is an excellent choice.

Lets all give him our support. This is not an easy task. The Middle East, China, Mexico, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, Central America, North Africa, so many hot spots, so many powder-key issues, when he speaks and writes, the world must know that he speaks for US and our President. The people of our country who elected Donald Trump are changing the world, we are empowering citizens of other countries to stomp out illegal immigration in their countries while we do so in ours, to stop unfair free trade deals that suck their work out of their country and transfer it to ours for $2 an hour when they should be building and making products for themselves to buy to improve their lives and living conditions.

Our new Secretary of State understands this as well as we do. He knows free trade is a term not a reality, we all want international business and trade but it must be on terms that are fair to both countries. The standard or measurement for that is balanced trade for both, not huge surpluses for one, that results in giant deficits for the customer country like the United States. That's not "free", that's selling out our country, bankrupting our government and impoverishing our citizens for no reason at all.