WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip a semiannual meeting of NATO foreign ministers this spring and will instead travel to a Group of 7 meeting of top diplomats in Italy and then to Russia.
U.S. officials said Monday that Tillerson will meet NATO diplomats this week in Washington for a conference on defeating the Islamic State group, suggesting there was no need for him to attend the meeting of the alliance in Brussels. The State Department’s third-ranking official, Under Secretary of State Tom Shannon, will represent the U.S. at that meeting, the officials said.
The officials said Tillerson would attend the G7 meeting in Sicily in May and then travel to Moscow.
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A United States Secretary of State skips a meeting with NATO in order to meet with China, then follows that meeting with Russia.
Hollywood would say this was too stupid a plot point, and cut it.
After Russia Tillerson will return to the Cayman Islands for a meeting with representatives of the Bank of Cyprus followed by a series of well-deserved naps.
Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast just got to 1830 in France, and the parallels between Charles X (the Simple) and Donnie are unnerving. They share the same dangerous combination of bottomless need for praise from elites and ignorance of subtlety. Announcing Tillerson’s snub of NATO and trip to Russia on the same day as Comey and Roger’s appearance before the House Intel Committee is a prime example.
If this isn’t the dumbest move to get Russia out of the headlines, I don’t know what is. Trump and Company act totally impervious to how deep they are standing in their own shit. It really makes you wonder how they can get anymore clueless. Maybe Don the Con wants to send a message directly through his designated courier to Putin since he never trusts emails, or so we’ve been told.
Message from Trump to Tillerson to Putin: Don’t believe all that stuff about the Trump administration being in trouble. It’s still a go. So, we’re still good? P.S. NATO can wait. Not important anyway.
Tillerson might want to look into some housing while he’s there on his visit…as he’ll soon be an enemy of the state back here at home.
This may have been the NATO ministers’ idea. They can probably talk more frankly when he’s not there.