Later this month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is scheduled to host a high-profile meeting in Washington with representatives of 68 nations involved in the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State.
The conclave will be Tillerson’s first big moment at center stage as America’s top diplomat, but it remains to be seen whether the meeting on Mar. 22 can put to rest the sense that the former ExxonMobil CEO has been sidelined as a major player in U.S. foreign policy.
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In mid-February, Tillerson did attend a gathering of G20 foreign ministers in Germany, but he largely avoided the press and didn’t make much of a splash. And there has been a steady stream of stories suggesting that after only a couple of months on the job, the secretary has been cut out of the decision-making process, with foreign policy being run by a close cadre of Trump advisers led by White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
That line of thinking is not without supporting evidence.
Tillerson was all set to hire Elliot Abrams, a foreign policy veteran who had served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, but the appointment was nixed by President Trump. In a piece last May in the conservative Weekly Standard, Abrams had written: "The party has nominated someone who cannot win and should not be president of the United States."
That apparently did not sit well with the man who did win and did become the Commander-in-Chief. Abrams was also one of the neo-cons who pushed for the invasion of Iraq, which Trump railed against during the campaign. So Tillerson still does not have a No. 2.
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Tillerson and officials at Foggy Bottom were also not consulted before Trump issued his first so-called travel ban — which had to be pulled and retooled in the face of fierce opposition and negative judicial decisions — and the secretary of state was out of the loop when the decision was made to mount a special-ops raid in Yemen in which a Navy Seal was killed along with 25 civilians, including nine children.
When Trump conferred with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb. 15, Tillerson was flying to Germany, but his designated representative was shut out of the meeting. Tillerson also didn’t take part in meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
And the State Department is bracing for a significant reduction in budget and staff — one that Tillerson fundamentally supports, according to Bloomberg.