By Carol E. Lee and Peter Nicholas
WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump is widening the
circle of candidates for secretary of state and will interview more
prospects this week, transition officials said, a sign that after
multiple meetings with high-profile hopefuls he still isn't sold on
who he wants as the nation's top diplomat.
Though Mr. Trump's transition team said last week that the
search had narrowed to four finalists, new candidates have emerged,
including Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of
Exxon Mobil Corp., one transition adviser said.
Alan Jeffers, an Exxon spokesman, declined to comment.
A final decision by Mr. Trump could come by week's end, the
adviser said.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence, appearing Sunday on NBC, said
the list of secretary of state candidates "might grow a little
bit."
Kellyanne Conway, a senior Trump adviser, told reporters Sunday
at Trump Tower in New York: "It is true that he's broadened the
search...He's very fortunate to have interest among serious men and
women who, all of whom need to understand that their first
responsibility as secretary of state would be to implement and
adhere to the president-elect's America First foreign policy, if
you will, his view of the world."
Secretary of state is the most prominent missing piece in a
national security team that is quickly taking shape. At a rally in
Cincinnati last week, Mr. Trump announced that he has selected
retired Gen. James Mattis to head the Pentagon as defense
secretary. He has tapped another retired general, Michael Flynn, to
serve as his n ational security adviser.
Normally an opaque process, the hunt for the next secretary of
state has played out with an unusual dose of drama.
John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who
is in the running for the post, arrived at Trump Tower Friday
afternoon for a private meeting with the president-elect.
Another top candidate is 2012 Republican presidential nominee
Mitt Romney, who clashed bitterly with Mr. Trump during the GOP
primaries this year. Last Tuesday, Mr. Trump had dinner with Mr.
Romney at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan.
Setting aside the campaign hostilities and perhaps trying to
make amends with supporters of Mr. Trump, Mr. Romney told reporters
afterward that he was "impressed" with the transition effort.
Other candidates for the job are former New York City Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump's most loyal campaign supporters; U.S.
Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), the Foreign Relations Committee
chairman, who also met with Mr. Trump in New York on Tuesday; and
retired Gen. David Petraeus, director of the Central Intelligence
Agency in the Obama administration.
Gen. Petraeus pleaded guilty in 2015 to a misdemeanor charge of
mishandling classified material in a case involving his biographer,
with whom he said he had an extramarital affair. He addressed his
legal troubles in an appearance Sunday on ABC, saying, "I made a
mistake. I have again acknowledged it. Folks will have to factor
that in and determine whether that is indeed disqualifying or
not."
One of the questions facing Mr. Trump is whether he wants a
trifecta of generals as his core national security team. That would
be the upshot if he were to pick Mr. Petraeus.
Coming to the presidency with no foreign policy or government
experience, Mr. Trump could rely more heavily on his national
security team than his predecessors.
So far he has chosen to largely freestyle his engagement with
foreign leaders, rather than rely on the State Department's
scripted guidance for such conversations.
Mr. Trump sent shock waves through the diplomatic community
Friday when he spoke with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, the
first conversation between a U.S. president-elect, or president,
and leader of Taiwan since 1979. The conversation ran against
Beijing's efforts to block formal U.S. relations with the island
off China's coast, which it has long considered a Chinese territory
and not a sovereign nation.
Choosing a secretary of state with scant foreign policy
background, such as Exxon's Mr. Tillerson, could further unnerve
those government officials serving in an institution that functions
on strict protocols.
Mr. Trump also faces a decision on whether he wants a more
hawkish foreign policy approach or one favoring diplomacy over
military engagement.
During the campaign, he signaled that he wants a military
posture that is less interventionist, eschewing "nation-building"
and "regime-change." Yet he has also vowed to intensify military
action against the Islamic State terrorist network.
"The balance of personalities in the [White House] Situation
Room is really important. It's one of the few places where all the
parts of government come together to shape foreign policy and
presidential decision making," said Phil Carter, the director of
the Military, Veterans and Society Program at the Center for a New
American Security, a center-left think tank.
"They have to bring their personalities and their judgment to
the table, and that's it," Mr. Carter said. "Who you have in that
room and in that decision process can have a big impact."
Mr. Tillerson, 64 years old, grew up in Texas and joined Exxon
in 1975. He leads a company with operations in more than 50
countries from Canada to Papua New Guinea that often exerts itself
abroad with the sweeping force of a sovereign nation. He is slated
to retire next year and Exxon has identified Darren Woods as a
successor.
As Exxon's CEO since 2006, Mr. Tillerson could leverage existing
relationships with numerous world leaders, including Russia's
Vladimir Putin, with whom he has had close dealings for more than a
decade .
His close ties to the company, including tens of millions of
dollars of Exxon shares that will become available to Mr. Tillerson
in the coming decade, could complicate his efforts to lift
sanctions or intervene in trade disputes where Exxon has a
financial interest. It would be almost impossible for him to recuse
himself, for instance, from working with all the countries in which
Exxon operates or markets its products.
Mr. Tillerson's corporate pedigree would make him an
unconventional choice for chief diplomat, foreign policy analysts
said.
Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the nonpartisan Center for
Strategic and International Studies, noted that former Secretary of
State John Foster Dulles was a lawyer at a top New York City firm,
but not a CEO, and that George Shultz was president of Bechtel
Corp., but had also served in government.
"Both are far, far, far smaller companies than Exxon Mobil," Mr.
Alterman said. "I can't think of a CEO with no government
experience becoming secretary of state."
As head of a company with a massive global footprint, Mr.
Tillerson, though, is no stranger to foreign leaders.
As Exxon's chief executive, he has spoken against sanctions on
Russia, where the company in 2012 signed a $3.2 billion deal that
Mr. Putin said could eventually reach $500 billion in
investments.
"We always encourage the people who are making those decisions
to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really
harming with sanctions," Mr. Tillerson said at the company's annual
meeting in May 2014.
Mr. Tillerson has some of the closest CEO ties to Mr. Putin and
Russia, with his work there dating back to when Mr. Putin rose to
power after Boris Yeltsin's resignation. The 2012 deal gave Exxon
access to prized arctic resources. Later that year, the Kremlin
bestowed the country's Order of Friendship on the American
businessman.
Mr. Tillerson supported a Trump rival in the Republican
primaries: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He gave the maximum $2,700
to the Bush campaign, and another $5,000 to the Right to Rise, the
super PAC that backed Mr. Bush. He didn't make a contribution to
Mr. Trump's campaign, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics, which tracks political giving.
Bradley Olson and James V. Grimaldi contributed to this
article.
Write to Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com and Peter Nicholas at
peter.nicholas@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 04, 2016 14:21 ET (19:21 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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