Delegations of several countries that participated in the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly (GA) did not wait to meet with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He canceled or simply ignored the series of negotiations. It is possible that the head of the State Department decided to better prepare for a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The cancellation of Tillerson's meetings with several foreign delegations was reported on the evening of September 18 by NBC. Journalists refer to information received from seven American and four foreign diplomats. Instead of himself, the Secretary of State forced to puff at the talks of US Vice-President Michael Pence or Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley.

Meanwhile, on the evening of September 19, the head of US diplomacy is scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. This is evidenced by the schedule of the head of the State Department. The meeting will begin at 17:00 local time (0:00 MSK) in the New York Palace Hotel. Perhaps Tillerson just paid close attention to the upcoming talks with his Russian counterpart and therefore could not attend other events.

The previous meeting between the heads of Russian and American foreign affairs agencies took place in the Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Lavrov and Tillerson then discussed the situation in the Middle East and the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. This time, a new package of anti-Russian sanctions, approved by President of the United States Donald Trump in August.

Another strangeness in the behavior of the officials of the agency (apart from the breakdown of negotiations with foreign delegations) was that last Friday, September 15, the traditional special briefing for journalists in the White House was conducted not by Tillerson, but by US National Security Assistant Herbert McMaster. He also accompanied Donald Trump at yesterday's meetings at the UN headquarters.

To the session of the UN General Assembly, the State Department came very lightly. At the initiative of Tillerson this year, the American delegation included only 140 people - half as much as a year earlier. Because of the shortage of diplomats, Americans simply can not carry out a series of events that Washington usually organized during UN GA sessions.

Thus, the group on African affairs in the delegation was reduced from 30 to three diplomats, the Central and South Asia group from 30 to seven. In the groups on human rights, ecology, cyberspace, military problems and assistance to foreign countries, only the leaders remained, the newspaper The New York Times.

This approach caused Washington's allies a reasonable fear that the United States, as promised by Donald Trump, would sharply lower their foreign policy activity for the sake of domestic affairs. It is not excluded that the State Department let foreign policy into its own right and completely gave it to the White House. Because of this, it will be more difficult for other countries to get the attention of the US to their problems.

The fact that Tillerson does not keep his hand on the pulse of events is evidenced, for example, by the fact that he has not met with many high-ranking American diplomats since his appointment. In addition, a number of high posts in the State Department are still vakanatnye, and the rest are people appointed by Obama. Some observers even suggested that Tillerson's days as Secretary of State were numbered, but Nikki Haley rejected these rumors, saying that he "will not go anywhere".