Rex Tillerson Confirmed As US Secretary of State

The 64-year-old was accepted in a 56-43 vote, which Democrats had attempted to delay in order to ask Mr Tillerson about the President’s temporary ban on refugees.

Joining Manchin in voting to move ahead on the nomination were two other senators facing re-election in 2018 – Democrat Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Independent Angus King of Maine.

Wednesday’s vote to confirm Tillerson came exactly three weeks after a rocky confirmation hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee. Sen.

Wednesday’s confirmation vote puts a man who has negotiated business deals with countries around the world, including some hostile to the United States, in position to negotiate on behalf of Trump in matters of war and peace, climate change and human rights.

Tillerson will take office with the weakest support in the Senate of any secretary of state in U.S. history. He is not expected to appear at State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom until Thursday or Friday.

“We welcome Secretary Tillerson to his new role, and look forward to engaging with him and his staff on matters of pressing global importance”.

“I am confident Rex Tillerson has the ability to be the effective leader the State Department needs”, Corker said.

The new secretary of state will face the immediate and delicate task of trying win back their loyalty and restore morale at the department. “The fight against Tillerson’s nomination revealed just how much fossil fuel industry money has corrupted Congress”.

The acrimonious row over Trump’s ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries has further complicated efforts to get his nominees confirmed.

Republican senators echoed Trump’s conviction that Tillerson’s role as chairman and chief of executive officer of Exxon, the world’s largest energy company by market value, gave him the connections and skills needed to promote USA interests overseas.

Mr. Tillerson was generally elusive on sanctions and Russian Federation.

“It’s unconscionable that the Senate confirmed an oil executive to be America’s ambassador to the world”, Michael Brune, the executive director of The Sierra Club, said in a press statement.

He’ll have to work with a skeptical Trump on dealing with Russia’s interference in the USA election. Tillerson has helped execute numerous multi-billion dollar oil deals in Russian Federation over the past 18 years.

But ExxonMobil had to cease operations in the region in 2014 because of the sanctions – which Mr Tillerson opposed at the time.