Trump reportedly will tap ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state

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Rex Tillerson
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President-elect Donald Trump is expected to tap ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, with whom Trump met twice this week, for secretary of state. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will be deputy secretary of state, a source told NBC News.

Tillerson has been president of ExxonMobil for 12 years after spending his entire career at the company, during which time he developed what The Wall Street Journal calls "close ties" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tillerson has a reputation as a strong supporter of free trade, a potential source of conflict with Trump, but less is known of his foreign policy perspective beyond his critique of sanctions as ineffective.

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Bonnie Kristian
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.