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Business Matters: What Will the World Make of New US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson?

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ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to Become US Secretary of State

14/12/2016 GMT

What Will the World Make of New US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson?

BBC World Service - Business Matters, What Will the World Make of New US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson?

Donald Trump Chooses Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State

The new US Secretary of State is set to be CEO of Exxon Mobil Rex Tillerson, while Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry will lead the Energy Department, we look at the implications.

As President-elect Donald Trump confirms the Chief Executive of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson, as his choice for US secretary of state and the former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead the Energy Department, we look at the implications of the appointments, for both the United States and the rest of the world. Professor James Goldgeier is Dean of the School of International Service at American University in Washington DC and gave us his thoughts. 

Also in the programme, the BBC's Coletta Smith reports from Reykjavik, Iceland, on the country's place at the head of a global league table for gender equality. 

Plus we hear from Bill Gates who has just launched his latest start-up - a billion-dollar project to turn good clean energy ideas into successful money-making schemes. It's called Breakthrough Energy Ventures - and he talked about it with David Brancaccio of Marketplace on American Public Radio.

As US debt approaches the $20trillion mark within weeks, possibly days, of Donald Trump's arrival in the White House, we discuss why this matters and the impact of excessive debt on the global economy. 

And they may be an aphrodisiac, but oysters certainly aren't seducing some of the locals on Rhode Island where public land is being turned into oyster farms. Marketplace's Andy Uhler went there to check it out. Andy joins us throughout the programme alongside Lingling Wei who China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing.

(Picture: Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson speaks as he and other top oil and gas industry executives testify during a Senate Finance Committee Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

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