As a pure copyright license the GPL concerns itself with distribution only. You cannot violate the GPL as an end user without distributing something.
However, distribution also happens in places you might not expect. As a business, I'd stray far away from such constructs even if I only use this construct internally.
However, this is purely based on the wording of the GPL. For example, the EUPL explicitly covers the creation of derivative works - and I'd argue that the proposed circumvention would create a derivative work.
Though I can certainly imagine that a multinational company might not be confident of the copyright status of API usage in all countries they operate in.