The audio transcript of Tillerson’s first sit-down interview since becoming secretary of state, with a reporter from the conservative news agency the Independent Journal Review, makes for uncomfortable listening.



The interview, which took place last week during Tillerson’s first overseas trip, to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, began with a discussion over why the secretary of state did not dine with a South Korean delegation in Seoul.



“You had dinner last night. With who? Your staff. OK,” the journalist asked, to which Tillerson replied: “We don’t, we don’t, the host country decides whether we are going to do things or not. We didn’t decide that.” Later, Tillerson admitted to being blindsided by a tweet from Donald Trump about China and North Korea.



“Was that an intentional … you’re shaking your head no,” the journalist said. Even when handling questions from a single, handpicked reporter from an obscure news outlet – the secretary of state broke with protocol and did not travel with a press pool – Tillerson still sounds floundering.

One can’t really blame him. Over the last few months, Trump has been moving America’s foreign policy decision-making power away from the state department, and into the hands of a coterie of advisers, including Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon; and the national security council and the Department of Defense.



In mid-March, Trump proposed cutting the state department budget by roughly 30%. “Believe it or not, you won’t believe it – we’re trying to save money,” Tillerson abashedly told the IJR reporter, when explaining why he took a smaller plane on his trip to Asia (it was also a convenient way to deny access to the press corps that normally travels with the secretary of state).



In an attempt to defend Tillerson, Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, told the New York Times that “he’s won status and respect of the president, of [national security adviser] HR McMaster, and talks all the time to Jared” – demonstrating that in this administration, Tillerson’s relations with the president’s advisers matter more than the integrity of the state department.



Tillerson, who had his choice for a deputy recently vetoed by Trump, and who has seemingly met with roughly the same number of heads of state over the last few months as Trump’s daughter (and Kushner’s wife) Ivanka, may be the weakest secretary of state America has ever seen.

The weakness of the state department, and of Tillerson, is problematic for two reasons. For one, it ignores the decades of institutional knowledge of the workings of other countries diplomacies, strategies and norms that thousands of career diplomats have built up serving around the world.

This has already led to blunders, both small – if the White House had worked closer with the state department in the lead-up to British prime minister Theresa May’s late January visit, they wouldn’t have spelled her name wrong, for example – and large.



In China, Tillerson seemed to be on such a tight leash that he parroted China’s language on the importance of a bilateral relationship “built on non-confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect and always searching for win-win solutions”. Beijing’s state media loved this.



A widely circulated essay posted on Chinese military news sites proclaimed that “although Trump is still getting ready to battle with China”, Tillerson’s use of China’s language “is a major breakthrough”.



Did Tillerson use Beijing’s language because Trump or Bannon ordered him to do so? Did he do it because he was understaffed, underprepared and didn’t know any better? Or, more charitably, did he negotiate something from the Chinese in exchange for using their language to describe the relationship?



After his China meetings, the Washington Post wrote: “In China debut, Tillerson appears to hand Beijing a diplomatic victory.” Because the state department brought along only a single journalist, Tillerson lost the opportunity to shape the narrative about his trip – further weakening both the state department, and America’s bargaining position with regards to China.

The state department’s weakness also empowers Trump and his advisers, and enables them to more easily bypass the electorate and the bureaucracy when making foreign policy decisions.



That’s why – almost without exception – authoritarian nations have weak foreign ministries. Russia conducts foreign policy from the Kremlin, not from the often overruled ministry of foreign affairs. Or consider China, which is ruled by a 25-member body, the Politburo, and especially by the seven-member Politburo standing committee.



Even China’s top foreign policy official, the state councilor Yang Jiechi, is not considered important enough to have a seat in the Politburo – and he far outranks Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister. The state department under Tillerson is “reminiscent of the developing countries where I’ve served”, a mid-level state department employee told the Atlantic. “The family rules everything, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows nothing.”

To be sure, Congress probably will not allow Trump to slash the state department’s budget, and Tillerson could prove himself competent and influential. Moreover, as William Imboden, who served in the national security council under George W Bush points out, Tillerson’s most powerful leverage may be that “Trump seemingly wants to succeed as president, and very few presidents have succeeded without having an effective secretary of state”.

In his IJR interview, Tillerson politely told the journalist, “I would hope that people can maintain their patience in these early days and recognize I’ve only been at it six weeks.”



But power is impatient – much of it has already moved elsewhere.

