Rex Tillerson: oiler is US diplomat

- The man what Donald Trump is concerned, his foreign minister, has, like Trump no political experience. In business, however, he belongs for years to the global elite. As chief executive of Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the world, Tillerson concluded with his Texan accent countless deals over the world, from Qatar to Venezuela and Iraq to Angola.

But of all his contacts, the most attention to its relationship with Russia, and in particular with President Vladimir Putin. The 64-year-old Putin Tillerson know twenty years. How warm is their relationship, revealed in 2013 when he was in the hands of the Russian president received the Order of Friendship, a high distinction.

Since the Texan in 2006, the pipeline was about ExxonMobil, where he spent his entire working life in service, the company closed several large deals in Russia. Thus spoke ExxonMobil and Russia's state-owned Rosneft to drill down together for oil in Siberia. Additionally Tillerson concluded an agreement on oil exploration in the Arctic. By US sanctions against Russia, however, was this kind of large projects to lie still, recalled the New York Times.

Tillerson wait a difficult appointment procedure in the Senate because of his close ties with Russia. Republicans have the majority there, but that is 52 out of a hundred seats are not very spacious. Republican senators like John McCain and Marco Rubio show themselves in advance very critical. It promises to be a first test for Tillersons diplomatic and political skills. Trump is convinced that ExxonMobil's CEO 'an excellent minister will be' thanks to his 'tenacity, experience and in-depth understanding of geopolitics. '

An interesting question is how soon Tillerson thinks as minister on climate change. Trump said last weekend at Fox News that 'nobody knows whether climate change is real. '

ExxonMobil long denied flatly that the burning of fossil fuels, climate change work in hand, but was led by the Texan a turnaround. 'The risks of climate change are clear and those risks require action,' reads the position today. The oil company even supported the Paris Agreement, in which dozens of countries agreed last year that they will be committed to limiting global warming.