REUTERS - The central question
facing Exxon Mobil Corp Chief Executive Rex Tillerson if he becomes U.S.
secretary of state is whether a lifelong oil man with close
ties to Russia can
pivot from advancing corporate interests to serving the national interest.
Tillerson, 64, got
his start as a production engineer at Exxon in 1975 and has worked there ever
since, running business units in Yemen, Thailand and Russia before being named
chief executive in 2006. He was expected to retire next year.
Senior senators,
both Democrats and Republicans, have expressed concern over Tillerson, who
emerged this weekend as Donald Trump's expected pick for secretary of state,according to a source familiar with the situation. By choosing him, the
president-elect would add another - and presumably highly influential - person
to his Cabinet and circle of advisers who may favor a soft line toward Moscow.
Among these is
Trump's choice for national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who raised
eyebrows when he sat beside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Moscow
banquet last year and who has argued that the United States and Russia should
collaborate to end Syria's civil war and to defeat Islamic State militants.
Tillerson's links
with Russia came under fire from top lawmakers on Sunday.
"It’s a matter
of concern to me that he has such a close personal relationship with Vladimir
Putin and obviously they’ve done enormous deals together. That would color his
approach to Vladimir Putin and the Russian threat," Republican Senator
John McCain told CBS.
McCain added that
Tillerson would, nonetheless, get a fair confirmation hearing.
Republican Senator
Marco Rubio, a former Republican presidential rival to Trump, was even more
forthright.
"Being a
"friend of Vladimir" is not an attribute I am hoping for from a
#SecretaryOfState," Rubio said on his Twitter account.
'A STRAIGHT ARROW'?
Many U.S. officials
are worried by Russia's increasingly aggressive behavior. It annexed Crimea
from Ukraine in 2014, has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the
Syrian civil war and is accused of interfering in U.S. domestic politics.
U.S. intelligence
analysts have concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help
Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, and not just to undermine confidence in the U.S.
electoral system, a senior U.S. official said.
In his role at
Exxon, Tillerson maintained close ties with Putin and opposed U.S. sanctions
against Russia for its incursion into Crimea.
Daniel Yergin,
author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil,
Money, and Power," said Russia represented a relatively small portion of
Exxon's overall operations and played down its significance.
"It was a
business relationship," Yergin said.
"The whole Russian thing is so much
front and center now so it's inevitable that those questions be asked but,
obviously, if you are a major oil company, you want to go to where your
resources (are). You have to replace your reserves," he added.
"If he becomes
secretary of state, the interests he will pursue will be U.S. interests. This
is an Eagle Scout kind of guy. He was president of the Boy Scouts," he
said. "He is a straight arrow. If that's his mission, that's what he'll
do."
Trump praised Tillerson,
saying on his Twitter account on Saturday: "Whether I choose him or not
for "State"- Rex Tillerson, the Chairman & CEO of ExxonMobil, is
a world class player and dealmaker. Stay tuned!"
Reince Priebus, the
Republican National Committee chairman who has been tapped to serve as White
House chief of Staff, praised Tillerson's relationship with Putin.
"... the fact
that he actually has a relationship with people like Vladimir Putin and others
across the globe is something that ... we shouldn’t be embarrassed by it. It’s
something that I think could be a huge advantage to the United States,"
Priebus said on ABC This Week.
However, Senator
Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a senior Democratic member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee that would weigh Tillerson's nomination, was unsparing in
his criticism of the possible appointment.
"Reports that
Rex Tillerson could be nominated to be our nation's top diplomat (are) alarming
and absurd," he said. "With Rex Tillerson as our secretary of state
the Trump administration would be guaranteeing Russia has a willing accomplice
in the president's cabinet guiding our nation's foreign policy."
Republicans will
hold more seats, 52, in the Senate than the 51 they will need to confirm
Tillerson. But they will have only 10 of the 19 seats in the Foreign Relations
Committee, so it will only take one Republican dissenter there to endanger the
nomination.
At least one
Republican committee member, Rubio, has already expressed reservations.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Tillerson would be
one of the few people selected for major roles in the Trump administration to
believe that human activity causes climate change.
After Trump's
election, Exxon came out in support of the Paris Climate Agreement. It has also
advocated for a carbon tax and internally factors in a theoretical price on
carbon as it weighs manufacturing and exploration costs of projects.
But some
environmental groups are alarmed at the prospect of Exxon's CEO as the
country's top diplomat.
Exxon is under
investigation by the New York Attorney General's Office for allegedly
misleading investors, regulators and the public on what it knew about global
warming.
"Donald Trump
appears intent to undo a century of environmental and social progress and
return America to the age of robber barons and corporate trusts," said
Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law.
"Who better to
turn to than Exxon, the granddaddy of them all?"
REUTERS
Follow Solenzo Blog on
0 Comments