[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.