If French banks with US presence start banking sanctioned individuals the US would start confiscating their American assets. It’s just not worth it for them. The military is irrelevant as long as usd is the reserve currency most countries use.

Why does it need to be all French banks? The French government could establish a special class of bank for domestic business, that isn't subject to international pressure except pressure applied to the French government itself. They should be able to find a way that a judge in Europe, living in Europe, paying European taxes to European governments, paying rent to a European landlord, doesn't have to give a shit about what America thinks.

This is a tractable problem, except for the lack of political willpower to create a solution.

Sure, France could in theory create such a domestic bank. But it wouldn't be allowed to connect to any US based financial institutions or transfer funds through networks controlled by those institutions. This would be so limiting as to make it hardly worth the effort. Ultimately I expect that France will just try to wait out the current US administration.

Yes, and Europe will start confiscating European assets of American companies. Your point being?

> The military is irrelevant as long as usd is the reserve currency most countries use.

The USD is rapidly losing this status, though. The current president's policies has turned the US into an extremely unreliable trade partner, so more and more trades are being done in EUR.

> Yes, and Europe will start confiscating European assets of American companies.

At this point, they should do so. With America weakened and behaving erratically, this is a good time for Europe to assert itself and put America in our place.

If it's a French bank the country of France can tell said bank they must service said customer regardless of the loss of their US assets.

Every country that works at an international level assumes said risks.

I for one am tired of internal national companies playing pick and choose on the best options and ignoring everything else. If the world wants to go multipolar again it's time for corporations to get kicked in the sack.

Sure, they could, but they won’t because the banks business would be fucked and most governments aren’t trying to destroy their domestic businesses.

They might, but if they did they would presumably be prepared to retaliate against US seizures with their own. The only reason the US is able to credibly threaten to seize EU bank assets is because the EU governments are implicitly on board with the entire arrangement. As soon as it's no longer viewed as mutually beneficial it will crumble overnight.

Which is why the way to deal with this is by sanctioning US companies in retaliation. Europe can't shield its own companies from the US, but it can inflict equal pain on US companies.

I don't think that's accurate. Which sanctions, specifically, would become ineffective if Emmanuel Macron stood up and said "Our government won't enforce this sanction against ICC judges or other personnel"?

If the sanctioned individuals can still use French that would make the "debanking" sanction much less effective.

Would it? The source article doesn't say that he's unable to find a French bank account. The practical "debanking" problems it describes - some non-American banks won't do business with a person under American sanctions, all payment card systems popular in Europe are American - aren't subject to the French government's enforcement or lack thereof.

>all payment card systems popular in Europe are American - aren't subject to the French government's enforcement or lack thereof.

I disagree. Tomorrow France can tell Visa/MC/Banks they must service ICC judges or lose the ability to bank in their country and suddenly said providers will be concerned about the predicament they are in.

The EU better pull its head out of its ass about following everything the US does at this point. It's obvious over here in the states things have gone off the rails, and they'll go down with us if they want to remain so tightly coupled.

> Tomorrow France can tell Visa/MC/Banks they must service ICC judges or lose the ability to bank in their country and suddenly said providers will be concerned about the predicament they are in.

Absolutely. You get the Visa executives lobbying the American government to stop this madness and it will stop.

I'm not sure how you can look at the current political situation in the US and conclude that business executives get veto power over government decisions. Trump just this month summoned the CEOs of every major pharma company in the US for a ritual humiliation, and commanded them to give him steep discounts for a new self-branded website he's setting up.

Visa > pharma. When big finance yanks his leash, he'll come to heel.

I'm even quite sure that it is illegal in France to discriminate against a customer without a valid legal reason here.