“Rex will be a fierce advocate for America's interests around the world… to reverse years of foreign policy blunders and disasters,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Trump said he was determined to carry out his repeated promises during the election campaign to scrap the policies of nation-building and intervening in the internal affairs of other nations that had been followed by the previous administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
“America has been caught in a cycle of failed interventions that have undermined our security [and] the cost in dollars and lives has been immense,” Trump said.
The United States, Trump added, must focus on defeating Daesh and not nation-building in far off lands.
Trump praised Tillerson as an experienced, successful global negotiator and noticed that his selection had been supported by experienced figures such as former secretaries of state James Baker and Condoleezza Rice, former defense secretary Robert Gates and former vice president Dick Cheney.
