Why was Rex Tillerson fired?

About a year ago, when Rex Tillerson took his oath as US Secretary of State, it was clear that his mandate would be short-lived and without trace. Although he remained in office long enough to think he might not leave, his dismissal confirmed the first judgments.

As many opinionists have noted, Tillerson is leaving behind a weaker and weaker State Department that continues to push talented and experienced people away from themselves.
Tillerson's dismissal will bring the State Department and Secretary back a more significant role in American politics. But this may also indicate that Trump continues to successfully remove obstacles that have not allowed him to do much more damage.
Trump's foreign policy has not been very good, as I noted in my book “U.S. Grand Strategy in Trump Age” But at least it was less radical than expected, following the harsh rhetoric it displayed in the campaign. As a candidate, Trump gave the impression that he would destroy the alliance, break free trade agreements in favour of domestic protectionism, and that he would overturn the foreign policy tradition he inherited. However, during the first year of the mandate, President Trump did not keep most of these promises.

Yes, Trump really removed America from Trans-Peaceful Partnership, and even announced that he would do the same with the Paris Agreement on climate change. Yes, it has really broken alliances and partnerships with harsh behaviour. Yes, Trump has threatened to undermine trade agreements since NAFTA to the bilateral trade agreement with Korea.
But symbolic initiatives have been more than real. For example, Trump did not separate America from NAFTA, despite his clear desire to do so; he did not restore the torture law, even though he had often valued it as a useful method. Trump has even kept America within the deal with Iran, which he had often reproved during the election campaign. Even on many other issues, such as Afghanistan and the Islamic State, Trump's policy has been no different than what any other republican administration would have followed.

There are many reasons for this, but the main reason is that Trump was simply surrounded by his most important advisers. Trump's world of understanding was so accepted that it was inevitable that he would have to surround himself with counsellors that do not fully comply, or in part, with his nationalism “The first American”. Trump's cabinet has managed to moderate impulses successfully on many issues.

According to press reports, for example, councillors Gary Cohn, chairman of the National Economic Council, and Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, managed to convince Trump not to break the NAFT agreement since the spring of 2017. Also, during the summer of 2017, it was reported that consultants for national security joined by opposing Trump, and prevented him from withdrawing from the nuclear agreement with Iran but prompted him to seek new negotiations. Unlike the feverish dreams of supporters of conspiracy theories, this was not the work of “with deep state mechanisms”. It was the self - appointed advisers of Trump who took the wheel out of his hand to prevent it from getting American foreign policy into a ditch.

The result of these cases caused the idea that Trump was being molded to spread. However, it seems the president has other ideas.
In a previous editorial, I have argued that Trump's foreign policy could be much more challenging during the second year of the presidency than in the first year. One of the reasons was that the Trump administration had simply postponed sensitive issues like Iran and Oil for later. That means Trump will have to face two choices very quickly: either to scale the situation or withdraw. Another reason is that the president would increase political pressure to keep some of his promises as the mid-term elections approach in 2018.

My fear was that all of this, as well as the inevitable fact that Trump would be bored of being controlled by counselors, tempted to break free from these obstacles and bring drastic changes to American foreign policy. And that's exactly what seems to have started now.

The concrete example is steel and aluminum tariffs, which were introduced last week. It is said that presidential advisers “establient” fought hard against these tariffs, but Trump ignored them, deciding to take into account the protectionist needs of economic nationalists such as Peter Navarro and Robert Lightizer. Shortly after that decision came the resignation of Cohn, as a black omens showing that the balances of power were changing, while the phase of the new NAFTA negotiations reached a critical stage. Tillerson's departure may have similar developments on other foreign policy issues.

After all, Tillerson, despite the shortcomings already recorded, was one of those advisers who tried to persuade Trump to avoid breaking up the nuclear agreement with Iran, creating a huge damage to America. The president seems to be tired of Tillerson's objections to the issue, (even mentioning it as one of the reasons why he was pushed off), and therefore replaced it with Pompeii, who has been very active against the Iran deal and has even tried to weaken it and lead it to its conclusion.

Tillerson's departure may indicate that defenders of the nuclear agreement with Iran are weakening, as May approaches, the last date he has set Trump to renegotiate the deal with Iran. In addition, Tillerson's dismissal shows that Defence Secretary James Mattis is losing a very important ally. It has been reported that both secretaries have been placed several times as a barrier to Trump to keep it longer in the general direction.

To be clear, Tillerson's departure can be more positive. For those who believe that a Secretary of State who has the president's attention is important to American diplomacy, then Tillerson's departure could be a step in the right direction. For those who believe that Tillerson's attempts to re-organize the State Department were thoughtless and counterproductive, his departure could be welcome. Pompeo, on the other hand, being in charge of the CIA has to know for sure what danger America faces from Russian interventions in American elections, even elections in other countries. But how able Trump will convince Trump to take significant measures in this regard is another matter.
The fundamental question with Trump always remains whether the battle for leading the American state will win Trump or his responsible advisers. And these State Department changes may be a warning sign of what is expected in the future.

* Taken from Bloomberg