BONN, Germany — By the time Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson decided that he wanted to join his counterparts at an important global gathering in Bonn — his first trip overseas as America’s top diplomat — all the good hotel rooms in this small German city had been taken.
So Mr. Tillerson and his entourage of temporary State Department helpers took rooms at a rambling health clinic and spa next to a public bathhouse in the picturesque town of Bad Neuenahr, more than 20 miles outside of the city — a bit like holing up in Beltsville, Md., for a conference in Washington, D.C.
The remoteness of the location fit with the growing distance between the Trump administration and its European counterparts on such issues as immigration, refugees, defense and trade. Indeed, so much uncertainty has crept into what had been close relations that Mr. Tillerson largely dispensed with the usual gushing and grinning news conferences with his counterparts on Thursday at the gathering of foreign ministers from countries in the Group of 20. The meeting was called to lay the groundwork for the summit meeting of leaders of G-20 countries in Hamburg in July.
With the Russians, though, Mr. Tillerson repeated what has become an increasingly hard line in the administration against the kind of warming ties that President Trump presaged in his campaign. In brief remarks after meeting the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, Mr. Tillerson said that Russia needed to honor its commitments to “de-escalate the violence in Ukraine.”
In a separate statement with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea, Mr. Tillerson also denounced North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test and promised that the United States would defend its allies with the “full range of its nuclear and conventional defense capabilities.”
In his own remarks, Mr. Lavrov emphasized that Russia and the United States could cooperate in some areas, and said that while the issue of sanctions was not discussed, those pushing sanctions should weigh “how much the artificial desire to politicize this subject meets the interests of the countries concerned.”
But such conventional statements could not overshadow the awkwardness of Mr. Tillerson’s first foreign foray in his new job. Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for instance, breezed into his meeting with Mr. Tillerson almost half an hour late, his blond hair flying as he dashed out of his motorcade of black Mercedes sedans, past old women in wheelchairs and into an entrance with a sign that read, Steigenberger Sanatorium, Private Clinic.
At the beginning of their meeting, a small group of reporters was ushered in to take photos of Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Johnson sitting across from each other. One reporter shouted a question to Mr. Tillerson asking what message he was sending to his colleagues about President Trump’s executive order on travel and refugees.
Mr. Tillerson remained mum.
“Good try,” Mr. Johnson said to fill the silence, as others in the room nervously chuckled.
The reporters were brought back into the room at the end of the meeting, and this time a shouted question — How would the turmoil in Washington affect the trans-Atlantic alliance? — was directed at the normally voluble Mr. Johnson. This time even he was silent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/world/europe/rex-tillerson-russia.html