Secretary of State Rex Tillerson might attend an upcoming NATO meeting after all, as department officials are working with conference planners to see about rescheduling the ministerial.
NATO planners previously offered to change the dates of the meeting to accommodate Tillerson’s schedule, but that offer was declined, a spokesman acknowledged. Following reports that Tillerson would skip the meeting, the State Department countered with an alternative set of new dates.
“That was done this morning,” acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
It’s not the first time that the United States top diplomat has skipped a NATO ministerial, Toner noted. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell did not attend the meeting in 2003, Toner noted.
Tillerson’s decision to skip the meeting came after President Trump’s campaign trail criticisms of NATO and multiple investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Tillerson’s scheduling plans were reported at the same time as his plan to travel to Russia later in April.
“I cannot fathom why the administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy’s most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin,” New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said late Monday.
Toner noted that acting deputy secretary of state Tom Shannon will attend the ministerial if discussions about rescheduling prove fruitless. “Secretary of Defense [Jim] Mattis, the president of the United States, Vice President Pence have all clearly stated our ironclad commitment to NATO,” he said. “We have raised concerns, certainly, about NATO allies all reaching their budgetary commitments … but that shouldn’t in any way speak to our disregard for the alliance or our commitment to the alliance and the security of Europe.”
