Firing Rex Tillerson Won't Change What He Did

As questions swirl about whether Rex Tillerson is about to be pushed out as secretary of state, there’s another more pressing question to consider: Does it matter?

Tillerson and President Donald Trump have both denied the latest reports that the president’s staff is moving forward with a plan to replace Tillerson. But the State Department is already under strain, and Tillerson’s standing abroad is already complicated by his boss’s proclivity for contradicting him in public.

Besides the business of diplomacy, two initiatives have marked—or, depending who you ask, marred—Tillerson’s 10 months as secretary of state: a 30 percent budget cut for the department, and efforts to redesign how the department works. While, in theory, these are two distinct endeavors, they have merged in the public imagination, since that diplomats are being “pushed out in droves;” the official in charge of the reorganization after three months on the job; and two highly respected retired diplomats the Trump administration in of “dismantling the foreign service” with its budget cut and hiring freezes. Tillerson’s future may be uncertain, but the budget cuts probably aren’t; the fate of the reorganization is unclear.