WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, enduring some nine grueling hours of questions at his nomination hearing Jan. 11, said the Trump administration’s top foreign policy priority would be to defeat the so-called Islamic State (IS). Tillerson, the chairman and 41-year veteran of ExxonMobil, also suggested the Trump administration might be inclined to keep the Iran nuclear deal, while reviewing it to ensure strict compliance and enforcement, and may seek to negotiate a possible follow-on agreement to ensure Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.
“There are competing priorities in this region … but they must not distract from our utmost mission of defeating [IS],” Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in his prepared testimony.