Inside the cold snap between Nikki Haley and Rex Tillerson

Nikki Haley, the high-profile U.N. ambassador who has gained notoriety for her strong, unabashed public statements, has attracted a significant spotlight as America's most visible diplomat.

There's just one problem: The country's top diplomat is usually the secretary of state. In a sprawling examination of Haley's tenure as U.N. ambassador, published Friday, Foreign Policy reporter Colum Lynch details the chilly relationship between Haley and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has become somewhat sidelined as Haley elbows her way to the forefront.

The divide, Lynch says, stems from Haley's insistence that her role as ambassador be treated as a Cabinet-level position — as in, as equal to Tillerson's. Haley's spokeperson told Lynch that she had made this desire clear to President Trump before accepting the role, and "the president readily agreed."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

As a result, Tillerson is conspicuously absent at events Haley leads. Moreover, the two have scheduled concurrent national security addresses, and Haley herself told lawmakers last year that "because I am a Cabinet member ... I work more with the [National Security Council] than I do with the State Department."

"The relationship is even worse than it appears from the outside," Lynch adds:

Read more about Haley — and her apparently thinly-veiled ambitions for higher office — at Foreign Policy.