Now, Trump has gotten rid of Tillerson. His reputation for firing from the hip is intact
The firing of United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is not surprising. What we would call, a Foreign Minister was in unsurprisingly fired in an early morning tweet by the President, Donald Trump. This was soon after Tillerson, the former Chief Executive of American oil giant Exxon-Mobil, agreed with the British Government that the Russian state was behind the recent poisoning of a former spy. Conspiracy theorists who believe, with some credibility, of Russian meddling in the 2016 US Presidential elections, which Donald Trump won in an electoral upset for the ages. However, that may not be the case for Tillerson, he had reportedly referred to his boss as a ‘moron’ (with an unkind adjective ahead of it) and even as the US President referred to last morning in Washington DC, Tillerson has major disagreements with Trump, particularly around the issue of the nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump despises and the State Department in the United States wanted to defend.
Had Tillerson’s firing or resignation been a one-off, it would have been quite ordinary. After all, premiers have the right to hire and fire staffers, even senior ones. However, Donald Trump’s White House seems almost dysfunctional. Tillerson was fired a week after David Cohn, Donald Trump’s Chief Economic Advisor, quit his job in protest over Trump’s import tariffs and headlong rush towards a trade war. A few days before that, Hope Hicks, a long-time Donald Trump confidant and the White House Communications Director, quit as well. And this follows a pattern of several top Trump Administration officials either being fired or being forced to resign in disgrace in the 14 months that the Administration has been in office.
Nations across the world look up to the United States, thanks to its democracy, economy and military. However, what most people are currently viewing is a completely dysfunctional state. By his imposition of trade barriers, Trump has appealed to his populist base, but being has shocked the traditionally pro-business wing of the Republican party, and that is just one example. He has also questioned climate science, education and immigration in the United States as well as attacked traditional allies. Then again, Trump has by some fluke managed to bring North Korea to the negotiating table, he might even manage to push through gun reform in the United States. Yet, some stability and talent in his Cabinet would go a long way towards assuaging the rest of the world. It might be ‘America First’ for Trump but America does not live in isolation. However, many also feel that Tillerson was not doing a great job, so it remains to be seen how Mike Pompeo will bring the rest of the world around.