The U.S. State Department is telling American companies to tread carefully when doing business in Afghanistan, because many supposedly “private” entities are actually connected to the Taliban, which is under sanctions as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group (SDGT).
According to Radio Free Europe (RFE), the warning was issued on Saturday because former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad paid a visit to Kabul on September 7 to witness the signing of an oil and gas deal with Saudi Arabia.
The $200 million deal covered a 25-year contract between Saudi Arabia’s Delta International Energy and the Taliban junta. For the first eight years of the contract, Delta International Energy would have the rights to explore for oil and gas in Afghanistan’s western provinces of Herat and Badghis. After the Taliban’s mining and oil minister, Hedyatullah Badri.that, the company would begin helping the regime to extract oil and gas from the area.
The Taliban’s mining and oil minister, Hedyatullah Badri, said:
We are working to create opportunities for investment in the assessment, exploration, prospecting and professional extraction of the country’s natural resources, and to make effective use of Afghanistan’s natural resources to promote economic growth, improve people’s welfare and create employment opportunities.
Khalilzad attended the signing ceremony between Badri and Delta CEO Shaher al-Taqi. He said the deal was an “indication that Afghanistan is ready for business.”
“There’s been a vision for Afghanistan for some time for being a land bridge connecting Central Asia – a vast and important and rich in resources region – and South Asia, a region with a huge population, with a huge demand for resources. And Afghanistan will be the bridge that connects these two,” he said.
Khalilzad was a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan who served as a special representative to the country under both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. His resume made his presence at the signing ceremony, and his meetings with several high-ranking Taliban officials in Kabul, more than a little awkward.
The State Department made it clear on the day after Khalilzad’s visit to Kabul that he does not work for the U.S. government in any capacity, and no longer represents Washington.
“The Taliban remain designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) group. As such, we urge private companies interested in conducting business in Afghanistan to exercise extreme caution and ensure their transactions comply with applicable US law and regulation,” a State Department spokesperson told RFE.
The Financial Times (FT) reported earlier this month that certain Taliban officials are trying to break the ice with the Trump administration by offering access to over a trillion dollars in critical mineral resources in exchange for an end to sanctions and the release of frozen assets.
“Relations between Afghanistan and the United States should not be assessed through the lens of the past 20 years of war, but rather on the basis of future co-operation. Our economic policy is open,” Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told FT.
Only one country, Russia, has formally recognized the Taliban regime. A few others, notably including China, India, and Iran, have been willing to entertain Taliban officials and make investments in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The European Union has made tentative contact with officials from the Taliban to discuss the return of Afghan refugees.
The only official overture from the Trump administration to date has been President Donald Trump’s suggestion in September 2025 that the Taliban should return control of Bagram airbase to the United States. Trump complained that his predecessor Joe Biden gave the airbase to the Taliban “for nothing” during his disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Taliban refused to consider Trump’s request. Muttaqi told the FT that “all military and civilian facilities in Afghanistan, including Bagram, are national assets of Afghanistan,” but he suggested the U.S. could reopen its embassy in Kabul, as the Taliban have “rebuilt the road and planted new trees” to make the area look “vibrant and attractive.”
Dismayed critics of the brutal Taliban regime told RFE that whatever his official status might be, Khalilzad’s visits to Kabul are a public relations coup for the regime, especially since the Delta signing ceremony came so close to the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attack.
“Whatever his intentions, Khalilzad gave the Taliban something it has sought since returning to power: an appearance of American validation,” said Afghanistan war veteran Will Selber, now of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Michael Rubin of the Middle East Forum said Khalilzad’s presence at the Saudi energy deal ceremony was “galling.”
Recalling years of allegations that Khalilzad had conflicts of interest and was much too friendly to the Taliban, Rubin said the former ambassador had “come full circle” as a facilitator for the $200 million deal between the Taliban and a Saudi company.
“The 9/11 Commission has long since finished its work and, after 17 years, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction filed his last report,” he said. “Khalilzad’s tone-deaf ceremony in the Taliban’s capital as Americans mourn and the appearance of impropriety, however, demand congressional hearings if not greater investigation.”