Tillerson’s position here is very weak. President Donald Trump has shown his lack of faith in him by vetoing his choice for the No. 2 position in his department, Elliott Abrams. Tillerson has also been absent for most of Trump’s meetings with visiting leaders. He likewise does not seem to be playing a central role in the few foreign-policy decisions that the Trump administration has made: He does not appear to have been consulted before then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn took the White House podium to announce that Iran was now “on notice” not to conduct further provocative missile tests; there is no evidence that his advice was sought when Trump huddled with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in January after a North Korean missile launch; nor does he appear to have been involved in Trump’s equivocation on whether he still supported a two-state solution in the Middle East. Most dramatically, he has not been able to stave off Trump’s proposal for deep cuts in the budget for diplomacy and foreign aid.
Tillerson might compensate for this lack of support by strong backing from his department. This would not only arm him with information and arguments to make his voice heard but would show other audiences that he has earned the respect of diplomatic professionals. Tillerson unfortunately is weak here as well. News stories indicate that he remains distant from his officials, many of whom have been removed or have resigned, and convey dissatisfaction and negative evaluations of his performance by foreign service officers. A minor indicator was his ignorance of the protocol to be followed when he met his Russian counterpart and neglected to make the standard introductory remarks. This shows that Tillerson was disconnected from his building’s expertise, that he ignored what he was told, or that his subordinates went out of their way to embarrass him…
With these weaknesses reinforcing each other, Tillerson is on a downward spiral. Reversing it will require open support from the president, most obviously by his scrapping the diplomatic and foreign aid budget cuts, ratifying Tillerson’s choice of top subordinates, including him in high-profile meetings, and endorsing some of his policies, such as not withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate change agreement. In parallel, Tillerson needs to assert the role of the State Department in issues of trade and migration that are central to Trump’s concerns. Meeting with the press and displaying command of the issues would also be important steps.
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