A Republican congressman said Tuesday that President-elect Trump’s selection for secretary for state needs to divest all his holdings in Exxon Mobil before he leads the nation’s diplomatic efforts.
Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., said on CNN it’s incumbent on Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, to avoid any signs of conflict of interest. Given Exxon Mobil’s business dealings in Russia, that should be done immediately.
“The whole Russian connection with Mr. Tillerson is something everyone needs to be a little bit cautious of,” he said. “It does throw up some red flags. Certainly, Mr. Tillerson should divest himself of his holdings at Exxon so there’s no conflicts of interest at all.”
In recent years, the Obama administration has made a conscious decision to start focusing more on Asia in order to make sure American influence does not wane in light of China’s rise in prominence. Ribble said he thinks the Trump administration may be moving away from that.
“Russia is not necessarily a friend and the Trump administration is not pivoting toward Asia like President Obama did but pivoting toward Russia,” he said.
Ribble said that he is nonetheless intrigued by Tillerson’s impending nomination due to the oil executive’s work with other countries. He said Tillerson has a broad range of past work with foreign countries that might be a fresh point of view for the State Department.
He said the amount of business people in Trump’s Cabinet will likely be a net plus for the country.
“These business people Trump is bringing into his Cabinet are typically obsessively self-interested,” Ribble said. And Trump’s America First philosophy means “having somebody compulsively or obsessively self-interested in America is not necessarily a bad thing.”
