European companies that insist on doing business with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will “do so at great risk,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday in Saudi Arabia.

Tillerson’s remarks were made in a meeting with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who had been the target of a 2011 IRGC-led assassination plot, while serving as the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

“Both of our countries,” Tillerson said, referring to the United States and Saudi Arabia, “believe that those who conduct business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, any of their entities – European companies or other companies around the globe – really do so at great risk. And we are hoping that European companies – countries and others around the world will join the U.S. as we put in place a sanctions structure to prohibit certain activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that foment instability in the region and create destruction in the region both in terms of their involvement in Yemen, but their involvement in Syria as well.”

In addition to spreading Iran’s influence throughout the Middle East, it is estimated that the IRGC controls one-sixth of Iran’s economy and has benefited significantly from the lifting of sanctions on Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal.

On October 13, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin warned, “We are designating the IRGC for providing support to the IRGC-QF, the key Iranian entity enabling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s relentless campaign of brutal violence against his own people, as well as the lethal activities of Hizballah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups. We urge the private sector to recognize that the IRGC permeates much of the Iranian economy, and those who transact with IRGC-controlled companies do so at great risk.”

A few days later, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker, echoed her boss, saying, “we have urged the private sector to recognize that the IRGC permeates much of the Iranian economy, we have told them that those who transact with IRGC-controlled entities do so at their own risk.”

On October 19, National Security Adviser HR McMaster said that the administration’s “message would be, ‘don’t do business with the IRGC; don’t enrich the IRGC; don’t enable their murderous campaign; don’t enable their threat to our friends in the region and to – especially Israel but also Saudi Arabia and others.'”

That same day, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said of companies trying to figure out which entities in Iran are tied to the IRGC, “I think we can make it even more difficult, and I think in order to push back against all these non-nuclear activities… is something the president is intent on doing.”

In a related effort, Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon reported Monday that the Trump administration is leaning towards revoking the license allowing Boeing to sell airliners to Iran’s national carrier, after the airline was implicated for transporting troops to Syria in support of its President Bashar al-Assad.

[Photo: U.S. Department of State / YouTube]