Citing his experience in dealing with foreign leaders as the CEO of ExxonMobil, Donald Trump has made Rex Tillerson his official choice for Secretary of State.
In saying he will nominate Mr. Tillerson, the president-elect is dismissing bipartisan concerns that the globe-trotting leader of an energy giant has a too-cozy relationship with Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia.
That cozy relationship would channel enough money into Russia to wipe away their budget deficits for decades to come, allowing Putin to resume some of the largess that bolsters his popularity at home, and fueling an expansive Russian military policy that threatens a half-dozen nations along Russia’s borders. It would also significantly fatten the wallet of Tillerson and the one company where he has worked his entire life.
Now that President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to be the next secretary of state, the giant oil company stands to make some major gains as well: It has billions of dollars in deals that can go forward only if the United States lifts sanctions against Russia.
Those sanctions that represent the only barrier between Exxon pocketing billions and Russia being freed to romp? Trump has already let it be known that that barrier is likely to fall.
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Rex Tillerson has made business deals in a number of countries. Not surprising, since Exxon is an enormous multinational corporation that holds itself as being above national boundaries.
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.
“The chances that he will view Russia with Exxon Mobil DNA are close to 100 percent,” said Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a public interest group based in Washington.
The business deal Tillerson and Putin arranged is the largest in history. It would give Putin much needed cash and leverage, but it would require one other thing from Trump beyond simply dropping the sanctions. Trump would also have to follow through on one thing he’s already promised: selling out the environment and allowing climate change to rampage without limits.
Putin has never liked the Paris agreement, because it would mean a large fraction of Russia’s fossil fuel reserves would remain in the ground, rather than bubbling up to provide vast revenue for the Kremlin.
Tillerson agrees. Exxon is under investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for lying to investors about the evidence and extent of climate change.
The investigation focuses on whether statements the company made to investors about climate risks as recently as this year were consistent with the company’s own long-running scientific research. …
“This could open up years of litigation and settlements in the same way that tobacco litigation did, also spearheaded by attorneys general,” said Brandon L. Garrett, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. “In some ways, the theory is similar — that the public was misled about something dangerous to health. Whether the same smoking guns will emerge, we don’t know yet.”
Meanwhile, Trump has made his feelings about the Paris Agreement very well known, and is continuing to even deny the existence of climate change.
President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that “nobody really knows” whether climate change is real and that he is “studying” whether the United States should withdraw from the global warming agreement struck in Paris a year ago.
Between Trump, Tillerson and Putin, all the limits on Russia’s power and Exxon’s profits can be removed. It’s a trillion dollar payday.
The idea that Tillerson is qualified to be Secretary of State because he’s been involved in international deals while at Exxon is ludicrous. But it’s now clear that no one else was actually in the running. Not only were the rest of Donald Trump’s Secretary of State interviews strictly for show, one of them was done for even darker reasons.
“Donald Trump was interviewing Mitt Romney for Secretary of State in order to torture him,” Stone claimed on the program. “To toy with him.”
Wonderful. Just the sort of attitude you want for a man who is about to include nuclear weapons in his payback arsenal.