Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s decision not to travel with reporters when he visits Asia next week will only lead to “distrust,” a Democratic senator charged Friday.
“Restricting the public’s access to information only foments distrust,” Mass. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democratic member of the Foreign Relations Committee that oversees the State Department, wrote to Tillerson on Friday.
Tillerson is traveling to China, Japan, and South Korea to consult with foreign leaders about the increasingly thorny problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. A recent spate of weapons tests and missile launches, combined with belligerent rhetoric from dictator Kim Jong-un, has caused neighboring militaries to go on high-alert. But the State Department decided not to bring traveling reporters on the trip, to the frustration of press bureaus.
“Your decision to travel without reporters sends a dangerous signal to other countries about the U.S. commitment to freedom of the press,” Markey wrote. “Particularly when traveling to China, a country without robust press freedoms, U.S. public servants must clearly demonstrate their commitment to a vibrant media.”
D.C. bureau chiefs protested the decision in a letter to the State Department.
“We were deeply concerned to hear that Secretary Tillerson plans to travel to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo to hold key meetings about some of the most important foreign policy issues for the United States without any traveling press,” they wrote. “Not only does this situation leave the public narrative of the meetings up to the Chinese foreign ministry as well as Korea’s and Japan’s, but it gives the American people no window whatsoever into the views and actions of the nation’s leaders.”
Tillerson decided to travel without reporters in order to make the trip on a smaller plane that would cost less money, according to White House press secretary Sean Spicer. “The plane that the secretary is taking doesn’t accommodate that but they have made accommodations for members of the press to cover everything,” Spicer said. “There’s an element of cost-savings at this point that the secretary is trying to achieve.”
