WEST ALLIS, Wis. — President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday that his nominee for secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, would reverse “years of foreign policy blunders and disasters,” and that his close ties to antagonistic foreign leaders — a potential hurdle to his confirmation by the Senate — was one of the reasons he had picked him.

“Rex is friendly with many of the leaders in the world who we don’t get along with,” Mr. Trump said to a boisterous crowd here. “And some people don’t like that. They don’t want him to be friendly.” But he added, “That’s why I’m doing the deal with Rex, because I like what this is all about.”

Mr. Trump did not refer specifically to Mr. Tillerson’s longstanding ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a relationship he cultivated as chief executive of Exxon Mobil. But the president-elect described Mr. Tillerson as a “great diplomat, a strong man, a tough man,” noting that he had been endorsed by Republican foreign-policy elders including James A. Baker III, Robert M. Gates and Condoleezza Rice.

“People are looking at this résumé and honestly, they’ve never seen a résumé like this before,” he said.