Guest Editorial FIRING OF REX TILLERSON

Mar 18, 2018 Editorial, Features / Columnists

On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump, fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by tweet and replaced him with CIA Director, Mike Pompeo. There had been months of clashes on several foreign policy issues with Trump.
The firing abruptly ends Tillerson’s turbulent tenure as America’s top diplomat and escalates the administration’s chaotic second-year shake-up. Pompeo who is now America’s spy chief will become its next top diplomat as Secretary of State. Gina Haspel will replace him as the first woman Director of the CIA.
A graduate of West Point and Harvard Law School and a former Republican congressman, Pompeo is widely seen as more of a loyalist to Trump than Tillerson. The former ExxonMobil Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who had not met Trump before the election, grew increasingly at odds with Trump’s style and policies.
Tillerson’s experience as the globetrotting CEO of the U.S. oil giant convinced Mr. Trump to appoint him as Secretary of State. Now Tillerson will be retired to his ranch in Texas. He was ousted from office barely four hours after he returned from his overseas visit to Africa, where he reaffirmed the U.S-Africa relationship in spite of the vulgar and offensive comments by President Trump about immigrants from Africa and other black nations in January.
Tillerson is the latest casualty of an erratic and chaotic administration that has seen multiple top officials depart in recent weeks. He is the latest of an exodus of senior administration officials and advisers in Trump’s inner circle. The Trump administration has set the record in terms of staff turn-over as several other Cabinet secretaries face ethics investigations. It is the worse in the modern era. The question is: Who is next?
As reported, Tillerson had every intention of staying on as Secretary of State because of the progress he made on critical national security issues on North Korea and of the good relations he had established with the foreign ministers around the world. His abrupt dismissal ends the turbulent tenure. He was alleged to have called President Trump a moron.
Trump contends that Tillerson’s firing was due to his bad advice to him to stick with the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration, the U.S. commitment to the Paris Climate Accord, the Asia-Pacific free trade policy and Tillerson’s objection to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Mr. Trump also disagreed with the Secretary of State’s position of alleged Russia’s interference in U.S. presidential elections.
News of Tillerson’s firing was reported by the Washington Post before the president tweeted that he had fired the Secretary of State. During his remarks at the State Department, Tillerson stated that he received a call from the President more than three hours after he learnt of his dismissal. Not only was Tillerson fired, but also his Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Steve Goldstein for contradicting the White House Chief of Staff official account of how Tillerson was notified of his termination.
Goldstein, who has been the Undersecretary of State for less than three months stated that the Secretary of State was told by tweet and not directly by the President that he was fired.
President Trump’s sudden and surprising dismissal of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is the latest example of the Trump administration in disarray, which has become problematic for its European allies, especially Britain, Germany and France, which have expressed grave concerns about America’s leadership around the world.
However, President Trump’s constant rejection that his administration is in chaos is contrary to public perception, even among Republicans.

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