CAIRO – 26 July 2017: Three days after the resignation of the White House press secretary Sean Spicer over opposing President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Anthony Scaramucci as communications director, CNN reported on Monday an increasing rift between the U.S. president and his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
CNN presenter John King said that Tillerson’s conversations with his friends outside of Washington hint at a possible resignation by the end of this year, while two anonymous sources indicated that it might be sooner than that.
King mentioned that certain sources revealed that Tillerson viewed Trump’s act of publicly criticizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an interview with The New York Times as unprofessional.
Trump described Session’s decision to recuse himself from any decisions related to the Russia election meddling investigation saying it was “unfair to the President.”
“Tillerson has a growing list of differences with the White House, including a new debate over Iran policy and personnel. His frustration is hardly a secret and it has spilled out publicly at times,” King said.
The Telegraph listed on Monday several points of disagreement between Trump and Tillerson. Disagreement started when the president blocked the appointment of a number of personnel recommended by his secretary of state.
A case in point is “the hiring of Elliott Abrams as Mr Tillerson's second in command, because Mr Abrams was critical of Mr Trump and his policy positions during the 2016 campaign,” according to The Telegraph.
Tillerson on one side, and Jared Kushner and the director of presidential personnel Johnny DeStefano on the other side, had a heated debate on staffing, as Tillerson rejected the involvement of the White House in staffing leading to Kushner calling him ‘unprofessional.’
Furthermore, Tillerson did not succeed in inhibiting the withdrawal of the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change on June 1 despite his conviction that his country should have continued in the agreement.
Trump and Tillerson Disagreement on Qatar
While Trump viewed Qatar as a historical terrorism funder “at a very high level,” Tillerson “advocated” remaining neutral on the crisis between the Gulf state and its neighbors which had cut diplomatic ties with it on June 5, according to The Telegraph.
As Reuters reported, the United States will post officials at the Qatari state prosecutor's office as part of a Qatari-U.S. agreement signed this month to fight the financing of terrorism, people familiar with the matter said.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reached the deal with Qatar during a round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at ending a diplomatic crisis in the Gulf. The agreement has not been approved by the four U.S.-allied Arab states – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain - which accuse Doha of aiding terrorists.
But a Western official in the Gulf who has seen the document said it specifies actions Qatar will take by the end of the year, including placing two U.S. Department of Justice officials in Qatar's general prosecution, according to Reuters.
Other actions in the agreement include imposing travel bans, enforcing surveillance and freezing the assets of individuals with suspected links to terrorism. The accord points to internationally agreed definitions of terrorism without specifying particular groups.
Mohamed Farrag Abou El Nour - writer, political analyst and expert in international affairs – commented that Tillerson was working for a giant company that is ExxonMobil, which means that he had to be balanced in his acts and decisions and that he has an organized mentality unlike Trump who is “emotional and impulsive.”
Abou El Nour explained that Tillerson’s work in Russia for years raised doubts on his allegiance to the country. However, he was endorsed by Henry Kissinger, and Condoleezza Rice.
As for the Qatari crisis, Abou El Nour clarified that Tillerson realizes that political conflicts affect oil prices so that he has been trying to hold a neutral stance.
On the other hand, Trump is more eager to acquire investments from all Gulf States including Qatar, from which he is trying to obtain $300 billion investments.
Abou El Nour added that the $12 billion deal between the United States and Qatar to supply F-15 jets and signed on June 15 was agreed upon long time ago.
Writer, political analyst and expert in international affairs Mohamed Farrag Abou El Nour, Ph.D – File Photo
The expert said that the agreement signed between the United States and Qatar would allow the U.S. to supervise the money officially going out of Qatar which puts Qatar in a critical situation, but still that would not stop its funding to terror.
That is because terror funding is usually done through businessmen in cash and not banks, by diplomats who are not subject to checking, and under the cover of donations.
“What Tillerson did (the agreement) is a positive step forward, and Trump did not object,” Abou El Nour said.
Regarding the differences between Trump and Tillerson, Abou El Nour said that the Department of State is usually subject to influence attempts by the White House on one hand, and the Department of Defense on the other hand.
The expert elaborated that Trump is being subject to pressures from the Republican majority in the Congress, and the Department of Defense as they are the institutions investigating Russian meddling in the presidential elections.
These institutions are in favor of anti-Qatar measures and against the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015 under the Obama administration.
Abou El Nour speculates that the crisis would take long to be resolved and that no party would achieve “full victory.” He stressed that Tillerson’s resignation is “quite probable.”
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