{"id":30425,"date":"2017-01-12T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T17:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/tillerson-takes-tough-line-on-moscow\/"},"modified":"2017-01-12T09:00:43","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T17:00:43","slug":"tillerson-takes-tough-line-on-moscow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/tillerson-takes-tough-line-on-moscow\/","title":{"rendered":"Tillerson takes tough line on Moscow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON \u2014<\/strong> Barraged by questions about Russia, Donald Trump\u2019s pick for secretary of state promised a far more muscular approach toward the Kremlin on Wednesday, abandoning much of the president-elect\u2019s emphasis on improving ties between the Cold War foes. Instead, Rex Tillerson suggested the outgoing Obama administration responded too softly to Moscow\u2019s takeover of Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n<p>The surprising shift in tone by Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil CEO and Russian \u201cOrder of Friendship\u201d recipient, reflected the difficulty Trump will have in persuading Democrats and Republicans to broach a broad rapprochement with President Vladimir Putin\u2019s government. Calling Russia a \u201cdanger\u201d to the United States, Tillerson said he would keep U.S. sanctions in place and consider new penalties related to Russian meddling in the presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Although he said he hadn\u2019t read last week\u2019s classified assessment by the U.S. intelligence community, Tillerson said it was a \u201cfair assumption\u201d that Putin would have ordered the operation that purportedly included hacking, propaganda and internet trolls to harm Hillary Clinton\u2019s candidacy and advance Trump\u2019s. But in a puzzling revelation, Tillerson conceded he hadn\u2019t yet talked with Trump about a Russia policy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia today poses a danger, but it is not unpredictable in advancing its own interests,\u201d Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He added that Trump\u2019s administration would be committed to the defense of America\u2019s NATO partners, an obligation the president-elect called into question during the campaign if allies failed to meet defense spending pledges.<\/p>\n<p>While his prepared statement reflected some of Trump\u2019s desire for improved ties, Tillerson quickly pivoted under pressure from both sides of the aisle. On Russia\u2019s 2014 annexation of the Crimea region, he said, \u201cThat was a taking of territory that was not theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, he criticized President Barack Obama\u2019s sanctions on Russia, which ended up costing Exxon hundreds of millions of dollars. And he declared that he would have responded by urging Ukraine to send all available military units to its eastern border with Russia and recommending U.S. and allied support through defensive weapons and air surveillance, to send a message to Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is the type of response that Russia expects,\u201d he said in a response to questions from Sen. Marco Rubio, Tillerson\u2019s toughest GOP inquisitor, who later lectured the oil man on human rights and hinted he might withhold his support. \u201cIf Russia acts with force,\u201d Tillerson said, \u201cthey require a proportional show of force.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump offered a sharply different account of Ukraine during the presidential campaign and never proposed a show of U.S. military force in Ukraine. In an August interview, he claimed Russia would not enter Ukraine, not seeming to know Russian troops were already there. He suggested Crimea didn\u2019t count because the peninsula\u2019s people preferred being part of Russia, restating Putin\u2019s reason for taking the territory in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Like Trump, Tillerson vowed complete support for Israel, which he called America\u2019s \u201cmost important ally\u201d in the Middle East. He said the new administration would undertake a full review of the Iran nuclear deal to deny the Islamic republic the ability to acquire an atomic weapon. He said that might only be possible if Iran can no longer enrich uranium, which the accord permits under strict constraints and without which Tehran wouldn\u2019t have made the deal.<\/p>\n<p>Tillerson represents a break in a longstanding tradition of secretaries of state with extensive military, legislative, political or diplomatic experience. Yet his supporters point to Tillerson\u2019s lengthy career as a senior executive in a mammoth multinational company as proof he has the management and negotiating skills to succeed in the State Department\u2019s top post, particularly when facing tough foreign governments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s brilliant what he\u2019s doing and what he\u2019s saying,\u201d Trump said of Tillerson during a news conference in New York that occurred as Tillerson was testifying. \u201cHe ran incredibly Exxon Mobil. When there was a find, he would get it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His Exxon experience, however, has been criticized by Democrats for possible conflicts of interest because of the company\u2019s far-flung business dealings. Tillerson, who stepped down as CEO at the end of 2016, said he understood being secretary of state meant different responsibilities. He pledged to be a steward for U.S. national interests rather than corporate ones.<\/p>\n<p>If all 10 Democrats on the committee vote against Tillerson, and Rubio or any other Republican joins them, the nomination would then be referred to the full Senate with \u201cno recommendation.\u201d That would be an embarrassment for such a high-profile Cabinet nominee and could signal a larger confirmation battle.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 Barraged by questions about Russia, Donald Trump\u2019s pick for secretary of state promised a far more muscular approach toward the Kremlin on Wednesday, abandoning much of the president-elect\u2019s emphasis on improving ties between the Cold War foes. Instead, Rex Tillerson suggested the outgoing Obama administration responded too softly to Moscow\u2019s takeover of Ukrainian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30425"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}