REX TILLERSON/STATE/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described how he seeks to manage an often-fraught relationship with President Donald Trump, saying he tries to deliver short-term victories to an impatient commander-in-chief while focusing on a longer horizon himself.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Thursday, Mr. Tillerson acknowledged the contrasting styles of the two men and described his effort to bridge the gaps, while rejecting swirling rumors of his impending departure. ‘I see those differences in how we think,’ Mr. Tillerson said in his State Department office. ‘Most of the things he would do would be done on very short time frames. Everything I spent my life doing was done on 10- to 20-year time frames, so I am quite comfortable thinking in those terms.’…
Mr. Tillerson said one of his top long-term priorities is shifting the balance of the trade and national-security relationship with China, even as he adopted Mr. Trump’s stern tone on Asia’s economic power.
On Thursday, Mr. Tillerson warned China that the U.S. has an arsenal of economic weapons to force Beijing to address trade imbalances and a continuing territorial dispute in the South China Sea…
Tools he might apply include tariffs, World Trade Organization actions, quotas and other mechanisms, he said.”
-Michael C. Bender and Felicia Schwartz, “Tillerson Balances Trump’s Goals With His Own,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 19, 2017 07:32pm