Trump confirms oil boss Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state
Republican and Demoratic senators have raised concerns about Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson's close links with Russian Preesident Vladimir Putin
US President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that the chief executive of major oil company Exxon Mobil Rex Tillerson will serve as his secretary of state.
In a statement, Trump praised Tillerson as one of the “most accomplished business leaders and international dealmakers” in the world.
“Rex Tillerson’s career is the embodiment of the American dream,” Trump said. “His tenacity, broad experience and deep understanding of geopolitics make him an excellent choice for secretary of state.”
As secretary of state, Tillerson will be charged with enacting the US government’s foreign policy.
Tillerson said he was “honoured” by the nomination and that he shared Trump’s “vision for restoring the credibility of the United States’ foreign relations and advancing our country’s national security”.
Although he has no formal political experience, as Exxon Mobil chief Tillerson oversees a company that employs some 75,000 people across over 50 countries. He is said to have a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has alarmed both Democrats and some Republicans. He has forged multi-billion dollar deals with Russia’s state oil company Rosneft, spoken out against international sanctions that were imposed on Moscow, and in 2013 was awarded an Order of Friendship by the Kremlin.
As rumours of Tillerson’s nomination grew in recent days, one of Trump’s former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio, said that being “a friend of Vladimir Putin is not an attribute I am hoping for from” the next secretaty of state.
Fellow Republican senator John McCain expressed concern over Tillerson’s links to Putin but promised he would get a “fair hearing” in the Senate.
Reacting to the nomination, Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov said that all Russian officials and not just the president enjoyed “good, businesslike relations” with Tillerson.
Elsewhere, Trump selected former Texas Governor Rick Perry as his energy secretary. Perry famously forgot the name of the energy department during a 2011 Republican primary debate, when he said it was among the agencies he would get rid of if he was elected president.
He had been a vocal critic of Trump, calling him a “barking carnival act” and a “cancer on conservatism” before he dropped out of the race for the White House in 2015.
