Rex Tillerson

Wednesday March 14, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 14, 2018

Rex Tillerson just got brutally dumped from the White House

January 17, 2018

For the last several months, there have been rumors that President Trump was displeased with his Secretary of State and that he wanted to replace him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The White House has repeatedly denied that such a shakeup was in the offing, and Tillerson has repeatedly said that he doesn’t want to leave his job. But on Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted it out.

There is a lot going on here. Tillerson and Trump have never exactly jibed. The two have clashed over the Paris Climate Accords, North Korea, and the decision to move the United States’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Most recently, Tillerson raised eyebrows by laying the blame on Russia for the poisoning of the double agent Sergei Skripal—something that Sarah Huckabee Sanders wouldn’t do.

August 12, 2017

All of that may be secondary to the fact that Trump has never quite gotten over being called a “fucking moron” by his secretary of state. Tillerson was caught unawares, with the State Department saying he “had every intention of staying. … The Secretary did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason.”

Tillerson’s tenure was a disaster, marked by a historic gutting of his department, conflicts with the president that increasingly left him outside of major policy decisions, and a seeming hatred for the job. But perhaps Tillerson’s main problem was that he tried to act like a diplomat in an administration that hates diplomacy.

For those who are concerned about Trump’s erratic temperament, Pompeo and Haspel are alarming choices. Pompeo sees the War on Terror as a clash of civilizations and is a hawk when it comes to Iran. Haspel, meanwhile, played a “direct role” in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. With weeks to go before negotiations with North Korea supposedly start, Trump’s national security team just got a lot more hawkish. (Source: New Republic) 

 

Wednesday January 17, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 17, 2018

North Korea threatened with more sanctions, isolation at diplomacy summit

North Korea is facing a new warning to change its behaviour or face more sanctions.

The threat was delivered by Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland as she opened today’s summit on stability and security in the Korean Peninsula.

“Investing in nuclear weapons will lead only to more sanctions and to perpetual instability on the peninsula,” Freeland said to a room full of diplomats and reporters in Vancouver.

“The pursuit of nuclearization will bring you neither security nor prosperity,” she said.

The message was echoed by allies around the room, including U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is co-host of today’s meeting.

“The pressure campaign will continue until North Korea takes decisive steps to denuclearize,” Tillerson said.

“This is a strategy that has and will require patience, but thanks to everyone’s support at this table, and around the world, the regime is already facing costs that it is having difficulty bearing,” he added.

Freeland and Tillerson are among the foreign ministers and diplomats from 20 countries who have gathered on Canada’s West Coast to discuss paths to diplomacy.

Partners around the table welcomed the recent reopening of talks between North Korea and South Korea, and the North’s participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics.

After nearly two years of silence, officials from both countries sat down for 11 hours of discussions earlier this month. (source: CBC) 

 

Saturday August 12, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 12, 2017

Trump warns North Korea’s Kim he will ‘truly regret’ further threats to US and allies

Donald Trump on Friday went further to turn the crisis over North Korea into a personal battle of wills between him and Kim Jong-un, warning the North Korean leader he would “truly regret” hostile acts against US territory or US allies.

The warning came a few hours after an early-morning tweet from the president that claimed US military options were “locked and loaded” for use if Pyongyang “acted unwisely”.

The tweet triggered worldwide alarm and a rebuke from German chancellor Angela Merkel, who said: “I consider an escalation of rhetoric the wrong answer.”

But Trump stood by his words when asked about them at his golf resort in New Jersey.

“I hope they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said, and what I said is what I mean,” Trump said. “Those words are very, very easy to understand.”

He then issued an ultimatum to Kim Jong-un himself. “This man will not get away with what he’s doing,” he said. “If he utters one threat in form of overt threat – which, by the way, he’s been uttering for years – or if he does anything in respect to Guam or anyplace else that’s an American territory or an American ally, he will truly regret it.”

The North Korean leadership has warned it will launch four missiles at the waters around US Pacific territory of Guam as a warning to the US if it persisted with its practice sorties by long-range bombers based on the island.

Despite gung-ho language from the US president, there was no change in US deployments in the region or a change in the alert status of US forces. And it was reported on Friday that the Trump administration had reopened a channel of communication between US and North Korean diplomats at the U.N. (Source: The Guardian) 

 

 

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