“A DIPLOMAT that happens to be able to drill oil.” That is how Reince Priebus, Donald Trump’s incoming chief of staff, described Rex Tillerson, the boss of ExxonMobil, who was nominated this week as America’s secretary of state. In fact, Mr Tillerson, 64, is an oil driller through and through, has spent 41 years furthering the ambitions of one of the world’s largest private companies, and has often sidelined the American government because he felt ExxonMobil was better able to look after its global affairs itself.
Yet he has a reputation for dependability and small-town Texan values that has enabled him to stand up to, and win respect from, notoriously slippery world leaders such as Vladimir Putin. The question is, will it help him become a good envoy-in-chief for diplomacy’s nemesis, Mr Trump? Or will he also peddle Mr Trump’s “I win, you lose” sense of international relations, with oil interests always in the back of his mind?
For a leader of the world’s corporate elite, Mr Tillerson has parochial roots. Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, he grew up as a Boy Scout, went to the University of Texas, and rides horses in a cowboy hat in his spare...Continue reading
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