President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee, Rex Tillerson, is expected to address relations with Russia and China’s island-building in the South China Sea during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday morning.
The Trump transition team released the opening statement Tillerson plans to present to the Senate panel.
Tillerson is expected to tell senators that NATO is right be alarmed at the resurgence of Russia, and to say that “open and frank dialogue with Russia regarding its ambition” is needed so the United States can plan its course.
He called China’s actions in the disputed South China Sea region “an illegal taking of disputed areas without regard for international norms” in his speech.
Tillerson is scheduled to be questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations committee beginning at 9 a.m. EST.
Also on Wednesday, attorney general nominee Senator Jeff Sessions will begin his second day of hearings, while Transportation secretary nominee Elaine Chao will go before the the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee.
When nominating Tillerson last month, Trump said the former Exxon Mobil Corporation CEO “knows how to manage a global enterprise, which is crucial to running a successful State Department.”
“The thing I like best about Rex Tillerson is that he has vast experience at dealing successfully with all types of foreign governments,” the president-elect said on his Twitter account.
FILE – Then-Chairman and chief executive officer Rex W. Tillerson speaks at a news conference in Dallas, Texas.
Tillerson, 64, recently resigned from ExxonMobil. His massive oil deals with Russia could complicate his necessary confirmation in the Senate, where several key lawmakers have already said they are troubled by his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in 2013 gave Tillerson Russia’s Order of Friendship, an honor reserved for foreigners.
He is expected to explain Trump’s urging for a closer relationship with Russia, citing a deterioration due to the current policies of the Obama administration, according to Reuters, which reported on the advance copy of the speech.
Several senators, including John McCain, the Republican Party’s losing 2008 presidential contender, and Marco Rubio, who withdrew during the party’s presidential primary race in 2016, said they have concerns about Tillerson’s ties to Russia and Putin.
John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that Tillerson, who is a CSIS board member, “has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger.”
In 2011, Tillerson signed a deal with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft for cooperation on oil exploration and production, and since then, the companies have collaborated on at least 10 joint ventures.
The 2011 deal, valued at around $300 billion at the time, was for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. When actual drilling had just begun, three years later, Western sanctions imposed on Russia due to its intervention in the Ukraine crisis brought work to a halt.
Relations between the United States and Russia have been troubled since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The U.S. supports Kyiv’s claim to the region and, along with European Union nations, has imposed punitive sanctions on Moscow in protest.
Tillerson, trained as a civil engineer, joined Exxon right after he graduated from the University of Texas and moved up the corporate ranks over the next four decades. He is known for his international deal-making skills, and is said to have good relations with a number of heads of state around the globe, which would be an important asset for the top U.S. diplomat.
FILE – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corporation at their meeting in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, April 16, 2012.
ExxonMobil is the fifth-largest corporation in the world, by market capitalization. Although the company’s earnings were reduced somewhat by the past year’s slump in world oil prices, it is still extremely profitable. Tillerson, whose compensation is based in part on corporate performance, earned $27 million last year, down from a high of $40 million in 2012.
Environmental concerns are another potential trouble spot for Tillerson’s confirmation. ExxonMobil is under fire in New York and Massachusetts, accused of suppressing internal research showing that it knew about the impact of fossil fuels on climate change. Attorneys general in both states have subpoenaed the company, charging that it violated federal requirements by not disclosing the information to its investors and to the public.
Tillerson himself has acknowledged climate change as a man-made problem and made some concessions to reduce his company’s effect on the environment, but he has persisted in promoting the use of oil and natural gas, saying that “energy is the lifeblood to economic growth.”
The ExxonMobil chief has contributed to numerous Republican political campaigns in the past, but biographers say he is not known to have financially supported Trump’s presidential candidacy, contributing instead to the ultimately unsuccessful campaign of Jeb Bush, a brother of former President George W. Bush and son of former President George H.W. Bush.
Tillerson has voiced positions on some domestic issues in the past that diverge from stands taken by Trump, but generally has avoided speaking out on non-business topics.
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