According to filings with the Securities Exchange Commission, ExxonMobil conducted $53.2 million in sales with Iran, $600,000 to Sudan, and just over $1 million to Syria.ĮxxonMobil told USA Today that its deals were legal because they were done through a Europe-based joint venture and did not involve U.S. “t's up to me and the leadership and the corporation to insure that at all times though we are consistent with all of the laws, all of the rules, wherever we are operating anywhere in the world,” he told Charlie Rose in 2013.īut on Monday, USA Today reported that an ExxonMobil subsidiary conducted business with Iran, Syria, and Sudan in the early 2000s at a time when each country was under sanctions as a state sponsor of terrorism. In interviews, Tillerson has touted ExxonMobil’s reputation for conducting business on firm legal footing. In addition, Tillerson, pursuant to federal law, must recuse himself from making decisions impacting ExxonMobil for one to two years, which could be difficult considering the company’s extensive global reach. Unwinding his more than 2 million shares of ExxonMobil stock promises to be a far steeper challenge, due to the company’s strict liquidation policies. He has also pledged to divest from 156 entities in more than a dozen countries within 90 days of his confirmation. He has worked out a complex arrangement with the State Department through which ExxonMobil will deposit his $180 million retirement payout into an independent trust to help avoid conflicts of interest. Tillerson has made his financial disclosures and ethics agreement public, as Bloomberg noted, making him the only Trump cabinet pick to have done so thus far. As the International Crisis Group’s Joost Hiltermann told me in December: “The Kurds are taking unilateral steps to incorporate these areas, and they're using companies such as Exxon, who are willing to be used, in order to further that goal.” In striking the agreement, ExxonMobil, arguably, had bolstered the cause of Kurdish self-determination. Some of the blocks included in the deal edged into territory disputed by the Iraqi government. In one instance in 2011, ExxonMobil struck an exploration deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. Tillerson has spoken frequently about long-term energy security, and his willingness to pursue deals in unstable countries. Tillerson is certain to field questions on whether he can remain objective where Russia is concerned, particularly on the issue of sanctions against the country in connection with its involvement in Ukraine or the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. One of the sanctioned individuals is Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft. But these projects were halted in 2014, when the United States and other countries imposed sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine and Crimea. For his efforts, Tillerson received the Russian Order of Friendship Prize from Putin in 2013. corporations.” In 2011, the company entered a $500-billion joint venture to drill on the Arctic shelf and Black Sea, and another shale-development deal in Siberia. Things were not always smooth: In 2003, ExxonMobil tried to acquire a stake in Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos, the country's largest private oil firm, just before the firm was nationalized and Khodorkovsky was arrested.Īs Steve Coll writes in his book Private Empire, ExxonMobil during this time was helping broker stronger ties between the Bush administration and Vladimir Putin, since “the Bush administration had decided that American foreign policy would embrace and promote the direct ownership of Russian oil by U.S.

That deal-conducted, at Tillerson’s strenuous insistence, to the letter of Russian law-paved the way for ExxonMobil to gain substantial equity in additional Russian oil fields, helping it replenish its reserves. He took a lead role on the company’s dealings in the country’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, building a partnership with the state-owned Russian oil firm Rosneft in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

For a time, Tillerson headed up ExxonMobil’s Russian operations. oil venture based in the Bahamas, a tax haven as well as, allegedly, the governments of Iran, Syria, and Sudan, suggest a pragmatic businessman whose pursuit of profit, while legitimate, leaves him open to difficult questions on his foreign ties. His company’s relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin a shadowy Russia-U.S. And his leadership of one of the most powerful corporations in the world, while it gave him State Department-relevant experience negotiating in dozens of countries, could present substantial challenge for him if he’s confirmed.

Rex tillerson sleepy time tails