U.S. Firms Earn Billions from Blacklisted Nations

This probably isn't what they mean by “sanctions,” For the past decade, U.S.-based corporations have raked in billions of dollars in profits doing business with countries officially blacklisted for sponsoring terrorism, The New York Times reports. Under a decade-old law that exempts agricultural products and medical humanitarian equipment from trade embargoes, an obscure office in the U.S. Treasury Department has given nearly 10,000 passes, allowing companies such as Kraft and Pepsi to circumvent sanctions. The law is heavily supported by the agriculture lobby and industry groups, and allows items like cigarettes, chewing gum, Louisiana hot sauce, and body-building equipment to be sold to the likes of Iran, under the pretense of humanitarian aid. While some exceptions support American foreign-policy objectives, others directly undermine them, like the permission granted to an American company to build a pipeline that would help Iran sell natural gas to Europe, something the U.S. officially opposes.