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Comment by edelbitter | Hacker News Reader

Why US financial sanctions against an EU-based non-profit? Making it harder to accept money from the US does not seem like quite the right tool. Are they known to be primarily sponsored by US individuals, or depending on other service providers with US presence?

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It means no use of Visa or American Express bank cards, which are US companies.

I think SWIFT transactions are under US control.

No use of Apple, Google, Amazon, AirBnB, Uber, or other US-based services.

Eg, "Canadian judge Kimberly Prost is unable to use credit cards or access everyday services in what she calls an attack on the independence of the judiciary " - https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/12/12/its-surreal-u...

And, of note, online payments across EU countries is most often done with American payment methods. Most Chinese companies only take US-based payment methods.

Such a sanction really narrows down where they can buy online — it's not just the US that becomes off-limits.

Every day it seems a little weirder how many of these other countries are apparently passively tolerating the US/Google/Apple/etc-centric nature of parts of their internal economy.

The US had THAT much trust, not necessarily influence, which just went down the drain.

In Europe, "US had trust" only in the "free" european media, and among politicians..

People knew and know quite well what US was and is, besides the leading academia (many, if not most, lured there by money from other countries) and the holywood circus.

And no, it is not "because of Trump".

It's worse than that. No bank will have business with you because that would potentially affect _their_ other customer's ability to operate normally

This is a very big hammer and reveals how foreign entities are deeply dependent on the American financial system and thus exposed to the political whims of the US.

Being designated a "terrorist" by the USA means it can use ANY means to destroy you: overt violence, subversion, propaganda, and financial.

Not that the USA NEEDS to apply that designation to use those methods....

The objective is to target USA citizens who host their blogs there. Italian banks, EU-based payment processors and domain registrars will still block you if you are sanctioned by the USA Treasury, to avoid being cut off the global financial system.

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