Trump confirms Tillerson as nominee, will face battle in U.S. Senate

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump confirmed on Dec. 13 that he will nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state. Tillerson has been involved in massive oil drilling projects in Russia since 1998, enjoys close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and said in 2014 he opposes the Western sanctions imposed against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine for lack of effectiveness. Trump has yet to confirm whether he will nominate John Bolton, a pro-Ukraine hawk, as his deputy secretary of state.

The sanctions imposed against Russia have halted ExxonMobil projects, including a USD 700 mln joint venture with Russian oil giant Rosneft to drill in the Arctic Sea. According to a 2015 Securities and Exchange Commission filing, ExxonMobil estimated its potential losses from Western sanctions at USD 1 bln.

The nomination of Tillerson will face strong opposition in the U. S. Senate from the Democratic Party, as well as the neo-conservative faction of the Republican Party, according to news reports. Leading neo-conservative senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio have already indicated they could oppose Tillerson’s nomination.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republicans have a comfortable majority and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated he will support Tillerson’s nomination.

Zenon Zawada: Tillerson’s nomination will face strong opposition in the U.S. Senate, with very few, if any, Democrats likely to support him. (The U.S. Senate now consists of 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats.) But since Trump is already proving himself to be a skillful political broker, we expect he will find the needed number of senators to tilt the vote in his favor. That’s especially the case when Tillerson’s nomination has reportedly been endorsed by foreign policy heavyweights such as former U.S. Secretaries of State Condoleeza Rice and James Baker, who was the top U.S. diplomat at the time of the Soviet collapse.