[vineyardmike]

How would they get paid? Almost every bank in every us-allied countries would have to comply to hand over the money. The US banking regulations apply overseas because those banks want to interact with US entities. That's the nature of the US-Dollar economy.

Are you a French wine maker that wants to sell to America? You better be using USD with a friendly bank to pay for things like import fees/tariffs (or the American company you work with better do that). Sure you can deal only in Euros if you want, but at some point there's a conversion to USD when you sell to Americans. Middle Eastern Oil Company? Same thing. German Car company? Same. Brazilian fruit farm? Same. How about importing your Coca Cola products, and iPhones? Buying ads from Google? USD and a US-friendly banks are everywhere in the global economy because the US is such a big market.

Those banks will be banned from US commerce if they work with the NSO and don't hand over the NSO's money, and will lose tons of "innocent" business (like those nice wine makers in France). Their governments probably have treaties with the US, so they don't have a legal choice anyways. The US influence is viral.

[jevoten]

But that's because they're doing business with banks that want to remain friendly with the US, not because they're doing business specifically in US dollars. If they got paid in Turkish liras, but through a bank under US influence, those liras would also get seized, wouldn't they?

On the other hand, if someone used a local bank in their country to transact with an entity in China, and China demanded their assets in that bank be seized because they defamed a revolutionary hero [1], I would expect that country to block that seizure, regardless of how the bank itself might feel. I.e. they would demand any seizures comply with their local laws, similar to how extraditions (are supposed to) work, and not let other countries essentially steal from their citizens. Or looking at it a bit different, a bank can't take from its customers on behalf of a foreign country, since locals laws, unless they explicitly allow that taking, would consider it theft.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-lawmaking-idUSKBN1H...

Edit as reply because "I'm posting too fast" (thanks HN for not telling when I can post again by the way):

> Discussion about the US dollar misses the point. They do it because they can

I'd argue it doesn't miss the point, but rather, hides the true cause - that as you say, they do it because they can (as quickly becomes obvious when no other currency has this viral jurisdictional effect).

But I'm curious if anyone has ever tried suing their bank, in a non-US court, alleging that their seizure of their assets was illegal under local law. I can understand a bank rolling over for the US government, but it would be interesting to see if and how their legal system would justify it. Especially for something that is not a crime in their country.

[qazwse_]

I think a similar situation you can look into is the sanctions on Carrie Lam. While they are sanctions instead of a lawsuit, they did result in her losing access to all banking facilities in HK and China regardless of the fact they probably didn't think she didn't anything wrong. I think for most countries, keeping their banks working trumps almost all other considerations.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/28/hong-kong-carr...

[selectodude]

There are very few FOREX currency pairs that aren’t USD to whatever. Most cross currency trades are currency A to USD and then USD to currency B. So USD is involved and thus the US Government has jurisdiction.

[silverliver]

Again, that's only for foreign orgs that want to comply with foreign US law. The involvement of USD in and of itself is not relevant to whether the US government has jurisdiction.

[jajko]

It seems you lack understanding how international banking works in general

[serial_dev]

Discussion about the US dollar misses the point.

They do it because they can, basically we all live under the influence of the US empire, they can put pressure on most banks of they really want to, and if they really want to, details like which currency was used will not stop them.

[vineyardmike]

If someone tried transacting with USD cash in a foreign country it’d probably be fine. (Who knows, some countries probably have laws that limit the validity of transactions in foreign denominationed currencies, but that’s beside the point). Banks are among the most regulated institutions in the world. I doubt there are many banks that have USD-denominated depository accounts that also don’t touch the US banking system (because what good would it be), so the pragmatic reality is that USD requires the Us government blessing. Even if, yes, the government can’t do anything about a few sheets of paper in your wallet. Banks can’t really do currency conversion to/from USD without open access to American-influenced finance markets. So any hypothetical situation that’s not real but totally an imaginable edge case could exist- but it’s not very practical.

> If they got paid in Turkish liras, but through a bank under US influence, those liras would also get seized, wouldn't they?

Yea except no one wants Liras. They want USD (and sometimes Euros). So whoever accepts those liras will want USD, and they’ll transfer them to the USD-backed banking system, and back to the original points. Because again, how do you have access to high-volume USD/lira forex markets without using a US-blessed banking system.

The reality is that international finance largely runs on USD, and orbits US banks. One of the main international influence efforts the Us considers is a stable currency. So much so that other nations use USD as a formal currency. The US exerts significant political pressure and political capital to ensure that everyone needs USD in their economy. America literally made international treaties with every oil producing nations requiring oil to be sold in USD just to ensure that every country needed to inject USD into their economy.

> I can understand a bank rolling over for the US government, but it would be interesting to see if and how their legal system would justify it.

They’d justify it by having laws that say they’d reciprocate and recognize US crimes. It’s what the international community does.