Trump picks Tillerson for Secretary of State

Rex Tillerson sounds like a CEO name, and he is in fact the Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil. But he's also Donald Trump's Secretary of State nominee. Some thoughts:

The Good

– Tillerson knows the globe (i.e., anywhere ExxonMobil does business), and he knows major players around it.

– Tillerson is, by all descriptions, a hard negotiator, which is not a bad thing when done right.

– Tillerson is, for a change in the Trump Admin, not a climate change fanatic. He's actually spoken reasonably (or at least in a conciliatory fashion as CEO of ExxonMobil) about it. While obviously not suggesting getting rid of fossil fuels, he has suggested a carbon tax might be a reasonable way to start to address the situation.

– He was an Eagle Scout. He also served as the BSA's national president and on the National Executive Board, and was reportedly instrumental in reversing the organization's ban on gay youth.

– Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council doesn't like him (both because of the Boy Scout thing and because ExxonMobil contributes to Planned Parenthood). That gives him an upcheck in my book.

– He has endorsements from some non-crazies (Robert Gates and Condoleeza Rice and James Baker, for examle).

– In his CEO job, he hasn't relied just on his own whims, but has depended on strong analytical teams he's built.

– He was not a Trump supporter — his candidate was Jeb Bush, and he did not donate directly to the Trump campaign.

The Bad

– Tillerson has no formal diplomatic experience — in fact, he's the first Secretary of State to have no governmental experience whatsoever in over a century. Indeed, he's never worked anywhere besides ExxonMobil since he started his career in 1975. That's inherently limiting.

– Cutting big business deals is different from negotiating treaties. Understanding finances is not the same as understanding international and intranational politics.

For that matter, understanding corporate culture is different from understanding political culture.

– Knowing the globe from a corporate profit standpoint is a bit different from understanding American interests and how they intertwine with the interests of other nations.

ExxonMobil is described by some as a semi-sovereign international state, operating globally, with a revenue that rivals a lot of countries. And it has wielded that strength (including under Tillerson) in ways that weren't always aligned with US policy (e.g., cutting an independent deal with the Iraqi Kurds). Making the shift to looking after US may not be easy.

– Tillerson is a decorated "friend" of Russia, and has close economic ties to that country. ExxonMobil has managed to stay close to Russia regardless of how relations have gone between the US and that country. Indeed, a $500B oil & gas project that Exxon signed with Russia and was ready to start was held up by economic sanctions placed on Russia after the Crimea annexation.

How friendly Tillerson is toward Russia is an open question, enough to have triggered some doubts among even GOP stalwarts.

– Which points to a still bigger problem: while Tillerson will be required by law to divest himself of any investments that might be a conflict of interest, having worked for ExxonMobil all his life it's difficult to think that he will not deal with at least perceived conflicts at State (just as Dick Cheney did with Halliburton).

– Tillerson has frequently spoken out against economic sanctions — which makes sense from an ExxonMobil standpoint, but which are a major tool in diplomatic conflicts (as an intermediate step between discussions and armed conflict).

– Steve Bannon was one of his advocates around the nomination, which is almost immediately a downcheck.

– He once listed Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as his favorite book.

The Ugly

– ExxonMobil has not been the best of corporate neighbors. The Nigerian delta is an example of how willful flouting of pollution regulations and good sense have been part of ExxonMobil's culture, including under his watch.

– ExxonMobil (including Tillerson) have been more interested in the stability and willingness to do business of international regimes, than in whether they represented principles around freedom and democracy. I.e., autocrats who kept unrest down and the crude flowing through pipelines were more valued than democrats who raised questions about pollution and national income.

– Similarly, while Tillerson has made nice noises about ways to deal with climate change, ExxonMobil (including under his charge) stands accused of knowing climate change was real from internal studies but fighting measures against it tooth and claw as a corporate entity, and presenting disinformation to the public about what they internally knew to be true.

– America already has a global reputation for being driven more by big business than principle, of being more of an oligarchy / plutocracy than a land of liberty, and of being interested in other countries more for economic conquest than looking after their interests. Putting (yet another) billionaire oil & gas guy as our head diplomat is not going to help that image.

In sum …

Tillerson has the potential to be an effective State lead, and he's less zany than a number of other Trump picks — but his wealth and ties to ExxonMobil are a distinct weaknesses, personally and institutionally. That his greatest strength is that he's not an ideological lunatic says something very sad about our next administration.

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References:

– http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/13/505350255/what-we-know-about-rex-tillerson-trumps-pick-for-secretary-of-state
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Tillerson
– http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/rex-tillerson-from-a-corporate-oil-sovereign-to-the-state-department
– http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKBN14121W
– http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/rex-tillerson-secretary-state-trump.html

Trump Lines Up Establishment Republicans to Vouch for Rex Tillerson
The Trump team is rolling out prominent endorsements for the secretary of state pick, hoping to ease concerns over his ties to Russia.