Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired by President Donald Trump, according to White House officials’ statements on Tuesday morning.
He was in office for a little over a year, one of the shortest tenures in modern history — and it was not, experts say, a distinguished one.
“Tillerson would be at or near the bottom of the list of secretaries of state, not just in the post-Second World War world but in the record of US secretaries of state,” says Paul Musgrave, a scholar of US foreign policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The former Exxon Mobil CEO, whose nomination was initially greeted warmly by prominent foreign policy hands, will leave office without any major accomplishments. This is largely because he failed to wield any significant influence in internal administration debates over issues like North Korea or Russia, and in fact actively alienated the president during several key policy debates.
His push to slash “inefficiencies” in the State Department and seeming disinterest in working closely with longtime staff were even more damaging. Under Tillerson’s watch, 60 percent of State’s top-ranking career diplomats resigned and new applications to join the foreign service fell by half, according to a November count by the American Foreign Service Association.
This hollowing-out of the foreign service, combined with Tillerson’s inability to appoint people to vital positions like ambassador to South Korea, delayed American responses to major crises and weakened the State Department for a “generation,” according to George Washington University’s Elizabeth Saunders.
This can’t all be blamed on Tillerson: Even a skilled and experienced diplomat would have had trouble maintaining influence in the chaotic Trump White House, a place where foreign policy is often made over Twitter. As if to underscore the point, Trump announced Tillerson’s departure in a tweet — before the secretary himself could make a statement.
Yet scholars and foreign policy practitioners across the political spectrum agree that he deserves much of the blame.
"I think he really will go down as one of the worst secretaries of State we've had," Eliot Cohen, counselor to the State Department under President George W. Bush, told Axios’s Jonathan Swan. “He will go down as the worst Secretary of State in history,” tweeted Ilan Goldenberg, an Obama-era State Department official.
Many expected Tillerson to be one of the “adults in the room,” helping Secretary of Defense James Mattis rein in some of Trump’s wildest ideas. His attempts to play that role backfired — his ham-handed attempts to manage Trump alienated the president, who has reportedly complained about his “totally establishment” views on foreign policy.
When you combine the lack of influence over Trump with Tillerson’s dismantling of the State Department’s staff — he made more of a mess of the department in a shorter amount of time than any other secretary of state in history — you have a truly disastrous tenure in Foggy Bottom.
“He took the job and made it smaller,” Musgrave says.
Tillerson failed at the thing he was supposed to be good at
When Trump announced Tillerson as his pick for secretary of state, back in December 2016, the foreign policy community was split on the appointment.
As CEO of Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest corporations, Tillerson seemed to be more than qualified to effectively manage a sprawling bureaucracy like the State Department. Mainstream GOP foreign policy experts like former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley all praised the pick.
"He would bring to the position vast knowledge, experience, and success in dealing with dozens of governments and leaders in every corner of the world,” Gates said in a statement. "He is a person of great integrity whose only goal in office would be to protect and advance the interests of the United States.”
Critics, though, worried about Tillerson’s close relationship with Vladimir Putin and Exxon’s willingness to strike deals with corrupt foreign dictators and history of lobbying against climate change (though the corporation now says it accepts climate science). During his January confirmation hearings, senators grilled him about both Russia and climate change, with Democrats clearly unsatisfied by his answers.
"Do you lack the knowledge to answer my question, or refuse to answer my question?" Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) puffed after Tillerson repeatedly stonewalled his questions about Exxon funding climate change denial. "A little of both,” Tillerson replied.
Tillerson was confirmed in late January 2017 nonetheless, in a vote that basically fell along party lines. Quickly, he set about upending everyone’s views about him. As soon as March, it had become clear that the conventional wisdom was 100 percent wrong. The fears about Tillerson’s policy views had proven overblown, mostly because he had been completely overshadowed in internal White House deliberations over issues like Syria and Russia.
“More than a month after he became America’s top diplomat, Rex Tillerson is like no other modern secretary of State: he’s largely invisible,” the LA Times’s Tracy Wilkinson reported at the time. “His influence at the White House is difficult to discern. He appears to be competing with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Stephen Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, both of whom have Trump’s ear on foreign policy.”
The optimism about Tillerson’s management acumen, by contrast, had clearly been misplaced. Tillerson failed to place political appointees in a number of vital leadership positions, failed to spend a lot of time with his own employees, and pushed out longtime employees without clear replacements in mind. Morale inside the organization collapsed.
“I used to love my job,” one State Department staffer told the Atlantic’s Julia Ioffe at the time. “Now, it feels like coming to the hospital to take care of a terminally ill family member. You come in every day, you bring flowers, you brush their hair, paint their nails, even though you know there’s no point. But you do it out of love.”
What was true in March remained true for the rest of Tillerson’s brief tenure. On issue after issue, Tillerson proved to be out of touch with the president’s foreign policy positions.
The US bombed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in early April — just days after Tillerson suggested the administration would be fine with Assad staying in power. On June 9, Tillerson called on Saudi Arabia and its allies to end their isolation of Qatar; less than two hours later, Trump sided with the Saudis by labeling Qatar “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”
On July 20, after a meeting in which the president reportedly asked for a major expansion of America’s nuclear arsenal, Tillerson told aides that the president was a moron — or, according to some reports, a “fucking moron.” One time, Tillerson tried to open the door to negotiations with North Korea — and Trump slapped him down in a tweet.
The staffing problem at the State Department remained bad throughout Tillerson’s tenure and in some ways got even worse. Only 64 out of 153 political appointees were confirmed by the Senate, according to a count by the Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service. He had not nominated anyone to be the assistant secretary supervising vital regions like Asia and the Middle East, nor did he nominate ambassadors for countries as important as Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
These kinds of vacancies can be devastating.
Political appointees are necessary to shape policy, as they serve as a conduit between the administration and foreign governments. Without people in these positions, career diplomats fill in as best as they can, but they have a hard time making new decisions or formulating new policy. It’s near unprecedented to go this long with this many vacancies, because it cripples America’s ability to develop diplomatic stances on vital issues.
“When I was assistant secretary, I was sworn in early April [of the first year],” says Hank Cohen, the assistant secretary of state for Africa under George H.W. Bush. Under Tillerson, this position has still not officially been filled. “It’s a big problem,” Cohen said.
In addition to that, it’s not like the past year has been uneventful. During Tillerson’s tenure, tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program got so bad that war started to seem like a real possibility — and then President Trump decided to sit down with Kim Jong Un for the first direct negotiations ever between Washington and Pyongyang. One US ally in the Gulf (Saudi Arabia) laid economic siege to another (Qatar). Russia apparently poisoned a double agent on British soil.
And even the career staff suffered under Tillerson. He eliminated entire segments of the department, like the department that tracked war crimes. He imposed limits on transfers inside the organization, typically a way the State Department deals with staffing shortages, in late June.
He publicly defended a Trump administration proposal to cut his department’s budget by 30 percent and has repeatedly pushed for staffing cuts despite repeated rebukes from Congress. He also cut off the department from vital recruiting sources, like the Presidential Management Fellows program.
“Secretary Tillerson’s term has led to widespread demoralization in the foreign service, the dismissal or resignation of people with expertise that individually may not be irreplaceable but as a cohort certainly becomes so,” Musgrave says. “That hinders the State Department’s ability to enhance US interests through diplomacy.”
The State Department’s personnel shortfalls have long-term effects on everything ranging from the South China Sea to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — you can’t negotiate very well if you don’t have people who know how to do it. Saunders analogizes the US under Tillerson’s emaciated State Department to a person who doesn’t have health insurance. “Your life is probably fine — up until the point you get sick,” she says.
The source of Tillerson’s failures is both Trump and his own choices
Why did things go so wrong for Tillerson?
Some of the blame has to be laid at his boss’s feet. Trump is running a chaotic administration that has nominated a shockingly low number of political appointees across practically every department. The White House shot down so many of Tillerson’s picks for top deputies that he actually screamed at a group of White House aides during a meeting.
Trump personally displayed little to no interest in learning from the expertise of State Department personnel, preferring instead to push his pet priorities like weakening the Iran deal and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.
“It may be that in a Trump administration, the structural realities of the way the White House works, you can only choose among varieties of failure,” Musgrave says.
But that excuse only goes so far. Defense Secretary Mattis hasn’t been immune to Trump’s bizarre management style — he was blindsided, most notably, by Trump’s proposal to ban transgender people from serving in the military — but on the whole, he has been far more effective at advocating for his department’s interests and gaining influence over the president’s decision-making.
You could say this is because Trump has more respect for generals than diplomats, and that’s partially true. Mattis also seems better at handling Trump’s mercurial nature; according to the New York Times, Tillerson frequently annoyed the president in meetings by (among other things) saying, “It’s your deal,” whenever Trump overruled him.
But a third and vital part of it, experts say, is that Mattis — a career military professional and former general — is substantially better at working in Washington. In particular, Mattis understood that working closely with his staff in the Pentagon allowed him to advance policy ideas through the bureaucracy.
“Mattis is drawing on the expertise of his building. Some of that is a product of [his own] experience,” Saunders says. “Tillerson is not a creature of his building, nor is he a creature of government at all.”
By most accounts, Tillerson failed to build relationships with people in Foggy Bottom, relying instead on an insular inner circle made up of a few longtime confidants. This decision “constitutes the core of his failure,” according to Musgrave: It made it hard for Tillerson to garner influence inside the White House and to understand what his staff could do and how to deploy them effectively.
“Tillerson had a half-dozen, maybe a dozen aides who are not familiar with Washington and especially not familiar with the State Department,” Musgrave says. “But he seems to rely on these people who are loyal to him, known to him, at the expense of building relationships with the people in the building.”
Perhaps if Tillerson had developed closer relationships with State’s career staff, he would have understood that supporting budget cuts to his own department and downsizing staff would demoralize them. Perhaps he would have been able to develop new ideas that would have gotten the president’s ear. Perhaps he would have been more able to convince the White House to trust his judgment on political appointees.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. But the truth is we won’t know because Tillerson, to a degree nearly unprecedented in State’s history, failed to even try to work with his own department.
All of which invites the question: Why did this multimillionaire leave his cushy job at the head of one of the world’s largest corporations and then take a job at a government bureaucracy he didn’t understand and seemingly didn’t respect?
It’s a question only Tillerson can answer. And right now, it doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood for a lot of talking.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption From "moron" to "castration": a history of Trump v Tillerson bust-ups
US President Donald Trump has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via Twitter, naming CIA Director Mike Pompeo as his replacement.
Mr Tillerson's spokesman said he only learned he was out of a job when he saw the president's tweet thanking him for his service as top US diplomat.
The former ExxonMobil chief had a series of public rifts with the White House since he was appointed last year.
Mr Trump also named Gina Haspel to become the CIA's first female director.
What was Trump's reason?
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday, Mr Trump said his differences with Mr Tillerson came down to personal "chemistry".
"We got along actually quite well, but we disagreed on things," said the president.
"When you look at the Iran deal, I think it's terrible. I guess he thought it was OK.
"I wanted to either break it or do something and he felt a little bit differently, so we were not really thinking the same.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rex Tillerson: "I will now return to private life"
"With Mike, Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it's going to go very well.
"Rex is a very good man, I like Rex a lot."
Mr Tillerson is the latest in a long list of senior officials who have either resigned or been fired since Mr Trump took office.
Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2018 Report
How was Tillerson fired?
The Department of State said Mr Tillerson had not spoken to the president and was "unaware of the reason" for his firing.
Under Secretary Steve Goldstein said: "The Secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security."
Mr Goldstein himself was fired later on Tuesday by the White House.
Mr Tillerson said later in a news conference that he had received a call from the president on Air Force One after midday, about three hours after Mr Trump fired him via tweet.
He added he would finish his term on 31 March and would "return to private life as a private citizen".
According to the Associated Press, White House chief of staff John Kelly called Mr Tillerson on Friday and advised him to watch out for a presidential tweet about him.
Mr Kelly did not tell Mr Tillerson when the tweet would be posted or what it might say, reports the news agency.
The secretary of state was on an official tour of Africa last week when he was caught unawares by Mr Trump's agreement to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The top US diplomat's team said he was feeling unwell on Saturday and later in the weekend the state department said he would cut short his tour by a day.
"I felt like, look, I just need to get back," Mr Tillerson told reporters on his plane home, reports the Washington Post.
The 65-year-old arrived back in Washington before dawn on Tuesday to learn he was out of a job a few hours later.
The odd couple of politics no more
Analysis by Jon Sopel, BBC North America editor
The end was a perfect metaphor for the relationship. The odd couple of politics had been yoked together for too long.
Men of different temperaments, demeanour and style had reached a parting of the ways.
The secretary of state landed back at Joint Base Andrews to have a member of staff inform him that the president had tweeted.
Because Mr Tillerson is not on Twitter, the tweet had to be printed out. Fancy being the one tasked with handing that over to the boss. Fired by a tweet.
The career of a one-time giant of corporate America had come to an ignominious end.
Read Jon's analysis in full
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mike Pompeo: Meet America's new top diplomat
Who are the nominees?
A US Senate report found that Ms Haspel ran a notorious CIA prison in Thailand, where prisoners were waterboarded in 2002.
The CIA deputy director was also accused of destroying dozens of videotapes of interrogations at the camp.
Mr Pompeo is a former hardline conservative Republican lawmaker from Kansas and a Trump loyalist.
In 2014, he defended the CIA officers who waterboarded detainees as "patriots".
Both the new secretary of state and CIA director will have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Why was Tillerson fired?
Reports had swirled since last year of a schism in the Trump administration between the commander-in-chief and his top diplomat.
Last October Mr Tillerson was forced to convene a news conference to deny claims he planned to quit, though he did not address a report that he had referred to his boss as a moron after a Pentagon meeting.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump says goodbye to Tillerson: 'I like Rex a lot, but we disagreed'
Last autumn, Mr Trump publicly undercut the former Texas oilman by tweeting that he was "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with North Korea.
In December, the secretary of state departed from administration talking points when he offered to begin direct talks with Pyongyang without preconditions.
The White House - which insisted North Korea must first accept any negotiations would be about giving up its nuclear arsenal - distanced itself from his remarks.
Mr Tillerson was reported to be astonished at how little Mr Trump grasped the basics of foreign policy.
The Republican president, meanwhile, was irritated by Mr Tillerson's body language during meetings, the New York Times reported.
The secretary of state was said to roll his eyes or slouch when he disagreed with Mr Trump's decisions.
Rex Tillerson was a part-time truth-teller. In one national security meeting, he had the piercing insight and honesty to call Donald Trump “a moron” – possibly an Anglo-Saxon kind of moron. Yet, like his boss, he lacked the self-awareness to know that the same critique applied to himself, as the moron’s secretary-of-state.
There were clues along the way, many of them spotted by the man he so openly disdained. It was the moron-in-chief who challenged the moron-of-state to an open contest of intellectual power. “I think it’s fake news,” Trump told Forbes magazine, dismissing the moronic comments. “But if he did [say] that, I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”
Trump fires Tillerson: president swings axe after series of policy clashes Read more
Genius. At some point, you just have to surrender to this kind of brainpower.
But Tillerson did not have the smarts to take his analytical powers all the way to their conclusion, by building a formidable citadel of diplomacy at the state department. Instead of counter-balancing the moronic foreign policy coming out of the White House, he dismantled his own staff and budget at his headquarters in Foggy Bottom.
At the same time, he was forced to endure a constant stream of childish taunts from his boss, who used his Twitter thumbs to tell him – and the rest of the world – that his outreach to North Korea was totally useless.
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“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” his wonderful boss tweeted in October. “Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.”
Why ever would it work now? That’s a great question Tillerson should ask Trump if he gets an exit interview. Or maybe that was the cause of the exit interview.
That teensy difference of opinion – now rendered moot by Trump’s decision to sit down with Kim Jong-un – led to some more truth-telling about Tillerson and Trump, this time from Bob Corker, the Republican senator who chairs the foreign relations committee.
“You cannot publicly castrate your own secretary of state,” Corker told the Washington Post, without undermining your own diplomacy.
That naturally led Tillerson to protest that he was fully intact, in terms of his own testicles. Looking back on his career as the nation’s chief diplomat, Tillerson might pinpoint this as the foggiest of bottoms.
Tillerson cannot simply blame his obviously inept manager for this misery because he clearly castrated himself. In two successive budgets, he presided over the systematic dismantling of the diplomatic machinery he was supposed to be operating.
In year one, he agreed to an astonishing 31% cut to his own budget, followed by a 29% cut the following year. The proposed budgets would have decimated his own staff and operations, as well as international aid, and were mostly ignored by Congress last year.
Tillerson didn’t much mind the cuts. In fact he rationalized them by saying he wouldn’t need so much money because he was well on his way to solving the world’s problems.
“Part of this bringing the budget numbers back down is reflective of an expectation that we’re going to have success in some of these conflict areas, getting these conflicts resolved and moving to a different place in terms of the kind of support we have to give,” he told a foreign policy crowd late last year.
If that doesn’t qualify you for moronic status, it’s not clear what will.
The biggest Trump resignations and firings – so far Read more
Tillerson arrived in his job with all the executive skills you might expect after a very long and triumphant career at the top of one of the biggest corporations in the world: ExxonMobil, where he was CEO for a decade.
Sadly all those executive skills did not include the ability to retain or build a senior staff at the state department, where the exodus of experience and talent has been a diplomatic blowout. He refused briefings from senior staff and refused to talk to the press. He hollowed out the senior ranks with no rhyme or reason, leaving critical posts unfilled, while others simply quit or retired. Among them was the leading foreign service official on North Korea, who retired just two weeks ago.
Tillerson’s tenure was so bad, it prompted some rare bipartisan agreement. “America’s diplomatic power is being weakened internally as complex global crises are growing externally,” warned John McCain and Jeanne Shaheen, the Republican and Democratic senators, in a letter to Tillerson late last year.
And yet even the hapless and hopeless Tillerson could sometimes tell the truth to his even more hapless and hopeless boss. He disagreed on the Iran nuclear deal, which is at least consistent with talking to the North Koreans.
He even disagreed on Russia, a little: saying the nerve agent attack in the UK was “clearly” the work of Russia on Monday, even as the White House refused to say Moscow was involved. Just last week Tillerson admitted that the Russians would meddle with this year’s midterm elections, although he somehow couldn’t find a way to spend any money to stop that interference.
His successor, Mike Pompeo, was more forceful in recently condemning Russian interference, but as CIA director, it isn’t exactly obvious what he has done to stop it.
Where did Tillerson’s confidence and tenacity come from, if it wasn’t his competence in the job? Perhaps his partial truth-telling was the result of his overwhelming financial security. It’s a bit easier to stand up to your boss when you get a $180m retirement package before joining the administration.
So farewell then, Rex. There have been only a handful of notable Rexes in our time. There was the exceptional Rex Harrison, the actor who spoke his way through so many great musicals. There were a couple of Rex Hunts, one a former Falklands governor, another a former Australian football player.
Tillerson: you are only middling on this short list. You have been tragic, but you are no Oedipus, Rex.
The secretary of state had known a battle was brewing – but he had survived similar clashes with the president before
Rex Tillerson’s last significant act as secretary of state was characteristically out of tune with the White House.
Donald Trump’s spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, had avoided any blame of Russia for the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain, but minutes later Tillerson issued his own statement, which was definitive in supporting the UK assessment that Moscow was behind the attack.
Trump fires Tillerson: president swings axe after series of policy clashes Read more
It was the sort of statement of unquestioning support for an ally that would be expected in more normal times, and that was the problem. Trump had said privately but repeatedly that he found Tillerson too “traditional”.
Most longstanding observers had expected there could be a tweeted rebuke from Trump on Tuesday morning, as there had been several times in the past when Tillerson had strayed from the White House line.
But the dismissal came as a shock nevertheless, at least to state department officials who had accompanied Tillerson on his final foreign tour, to Africa.
The exit was brutal. Trump phoned Tillerson from Air Force One soon after midday, more than three hours after the tweeted announcement of his firing.
Tillerson managed only to secure agreement for him to stay on formally until the end of March to oversee a transition.
State department officials had said earlier that he would leave his post immediately and could not confirm whether he would even return to pack up his belongings. A departure date of 31 March was agreed upon, but he relinquished day-to-day running of the department to his deputy, John Sullivan.
When he appeared to make his farewell at the lectern in the state department briefing room, he was clearly exhausted and emotional. His voice was on the point of cracking.
Play Video 1:05 Rex Tillerson: 'I'll return to private life proud to have served my country' – video
He focused on the selflessness of public service and did not mention the president. He spoke about the values of accountability he had tried to instil in the state department, not the administration’s.
Tillerson and Trump’s offices even clashed about the circumstances of his departure. The White House said that he had been given a few days’ notice. But a Tillerson spokesman, Steve Goldstein, told reporters it had come as a complete surprise to Tillerson, soon after he landed in Washington at 4am.
Reporters at the state department were told that Goldstein would provide a briefing. Then Goldstein was said to have been “pulled aside into a meeting”. An hour later the news leaked that he had been summarily fired.
Tillerson had known over the weekend that yet another battle was brewing. He received a call on Friday from John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, according to the Associated Press, but that was apparently to warn him that there might be a tweet “of concern to him” in the pipeline.
But the veteran Texan oilman had survived similar battles before, riding out presidential dissatisfaction by marshalling his allies, and affecting a laconic unconcern about the backstabbing ways of Washington.
When White House officials unleashed a flurry of unattributable press briefings in late November suggesting that Tillerson was on the way out, he held an early morning meeting with James Mattis – the defence secretary and his close ally – and the two of them went for lunch with Trump.
After that meeting, the president disavowed any intention of getting rid of Tillerson, declaring it “fake news”.
That incident led to speculation that there was a “suicide pact” among traditional conservatives in the cabinet – including Tillerson, Mattis and possibly the treasury secretary, Stephen Mnuchin – in which they would all threaten to leave if one of them was threatened.
But if the pact ever existed, it failed to save Tillerson this time – perhaps because he was out of the country and unable to rally resistance. On the last leg of his African tour, he closed himself in his room for a day, claiming sickness, and then announced he would be leaving for home a day earlier than scheduled.
By the time his plane landed in Washington, it was too late: the execution by tweet followed just a few hours later.
Within minutes, Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the UN – who had pursued her own hawkish foreign policy in New York without reference to Tillerson or the state department – put out her own tweet. Haley described the reshuffle as a “great decision” and said nothing about Tillerson.
Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) Congratulations to my friend and soon to be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo! Great decision by the President. 🇺🇸
Haley’s widest policy divergence from Tillerson was over the multilateral nuclear deal signed with Iran in 2015, which imposed strict curbs on the Iranian nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Tillerson had consistently advocated remaining in step with European allies in abiding by the deal.
By contrast, Haley and Pompeo have unfailingly channelled Trump’s distaste for the deal – which could well be killed off by Tillerson’s departure.
Trump must sign a waiver on sanctions in mid-May for the US to stay within the agreement. He has signalled he will not do so, and openly expressed his frustration that Tillerson had persuaded him to sign earlier waivers.
Russia was another important source of discord, though one that Trump – under investigation for possible collusion with Moscow – has less reason to advertise.
The reaction to the nerve agent attack in the UK was just the latest example. Throughout his tenure Tillerson stuck to a tough line on sanctions, insisting that they would not be lifted until Russia changed its behaviour – most importantly in Ukraine.
Trump, by contrast, has constantly sought ways to relax the sanctions, starting from the first weeks of the administration, before Tillerson’s Senate confirmation,when the White House drafted an executive order relaxing key anti-Moscow measures. It was only stopped by firm resistance from state department staff and allied capitals.
On North Korea, Trump had humiliated Tillerson by tweeting his lack of confidence of the secretary of state’s diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes. The president told him not to “waste his time”.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man...
And when Saudi Arabia and its Emirati allies imposed a surprise embargo on Qatar in June, Trump immediately took Riyadh’s side while Tillerson criticised the Saudi ambush and tried to broker a solution.
Time and again, he was blindsided and sidelined in the Middle East by Trump’s son-in-law and special envoy, Jared Kushner, who is reportedly under scrutiny by Robert Mueller for mixing the interests of his family’s real estate business.
Tillerson and Trump also grated personally. Trump saw the Texan as staid while Tillerson saw his boss as brash and ill-informed. He reportedly threatened to resign in July after Trump gave a highly politicised speech to the Boy Scouts, an organisation Tillerson used to run.
Rex Tillerson says he won't quit but doesn't deny calling Trump a 'moron' Read more
After a security briefing on nuclear weapons in the same month, when Trump demanded to know why the US could not restore its arsenal to cold war levels, Tillerson described the president in his absence as a “fucking moron” and the comment got back to Trump.
When the report surfaced in October, Tillerson did not deny it. Trump appeared to shrug off the insult, bragging he could beat Tillerson in a IQ contest – but it is unlikely it was forgiven.
Trump and Tillerson never took much time to find out whether they had similar worldviews. Their first meeting in Trump Tower in New York was in December 2016, after Trump’s shock election win.
Play Video 2:14 Trump and Tillerson: the end of a rocky relationship – video
Tillerson, the outgoing head of ExxonMobil, thought he was just being asked to give his general views on foreign policy, and was taken aback when the president-elect offered him the top diplomatic job on the spot.
He later said he was reluctant to take the post, and had been looking forward to retirement, but had been persuaded by his wife.
Once confirmed, he approached the job as a commercial executive, telling Congress his focus was on the restructuring of the state department.
The restructuring took the form of a drastic downsizing. The White House proposed a cut amounting to about a quarter of the departmental budget, and Tillerson did little to defend his department, alienating many of his diplomats and civil servants.
Rex Tillerson: hapless, hopeless and tragic. Now his time is up | Richard Wolffe Read more
Forty-four ambassadorships are unfilled with no nominations, and with Tillerson’s departure eight out of the nine top state department administrative positions are unoccupied. Staff also felt locked out of decision making, which was increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small policy planning unit.
Week by week, the state department became less relevant in Washington and in the rest of the world, either because it had fewer diplomats to dispatch, or less interest in multilateral diplomacy. It evidently did not have the ear of the president.
That erosion of influence, of what was the world’s mightiest diplomatic institution, is likely to be Tillerson’s most lasting legacy. And very few, if any, believe it will be reversed by his successor.
