Rex Tillerson made deals with state sponsors of terrorism, despite sanctions

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday January 10, 2017 · 7:15 AM PST

2017/01/10 · 07:15

DALLAS - MAY 28: ExxonMobil Chairman Rex Tillerson speaks at a press conference after the ExxonMobil annual shareholders meeting at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center May 28, 2008 in Dallas, Texas. A total of 19 resolutions were voted on today by shareholders. (Photo by Brian Harkin/Getty Images)

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Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee has a head start on making deals with Iran. Because even though Iran was under sanctions as a state sponsor of terrorism and it was illegal for U.S. companies to have any dealings with them, Tillerson simply routed his discussions through one of Exxon's European branches.

ExxonMobil did business with Iran, Syria and Sudan through a European subsidiary while President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of State was a top executive of the oil giant and those countries were under U.S. sanctions as state sponsors of terrorism, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.

Tillerson’s own little axis of evil might have been funding terrorists, working to overthrow democracies, and using chemical weapons on their own citizens, but that ignores the really important point: They have oil.

Compared to Exxon’s massive $371 billion in annual revenue, the transactions with terror states were rather small. That’s not not surprising, since Exxon’s income is actually larger than the GDP of any of these nations. So neither Tillerson nor his company felt they needed to actually tell anybody, including the SEC.

The SEC letter questioned ExxonMobil’s failure to disclose to shareholders that it had transactions with three state sponsors of terrorism. Decisions to make such disclosures should be based on “the potential impact of corporate activities upon a company`s reputation and share value,” and not simply the monetary value of the transactions, the SEC said.

The kind of loophole that Tillerson used to route ExxonMobil business around the sanctions was eventually closed. But even when it was possible for companies to get past the barrier, companies were absolutely aware of the sanctions and of their intentions.

"Finding loopholes to make lucrative business deals with geo-political adversaries, while showing no clear regard for U.S. national interests, is not a resume builder for a prospective diplomat-in-chief," Menendez said in a statement to USA TODAY. "This is one of the many issues I look forward to hearing more about during the upcoming confirmation hearings.”

Finding a way around U.S. law is no problem for Tillerson—or for Trump. After all, nobody stopped him, either.

Rex Tillerson made deals with state sponsors of terrorism, despite sanctions

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