For the U.S., because sanctioning an “unpleasant”, but in essence harmless individual (geopolitically speaking) is ridiculous. Falling victim to de-banking alone can really ruin one’s life.
And for the EU, because it once again showcases the dependence on U.S. systems for just about anything tech-related in everyday life and work.
Neutrality and objectivity may be a fiction, but it's one of the most useful fictions that have been invented in the last 500 years.
I can't say I'm happy about that, but it's a fact now. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle. Even a change of leadership soon will not alter the realization that it can change back on a moment's notice.
So... we will find out.
In my opinion, the sanctioning of these judges simply comes across as a petty tantrum of a nation in decline, using the remaining tools it has at it's disposal to try to get its way.
edit: typo
Everything the US does and has done is aimed at defending itself and its interests, which includes its allies, as it should, and as it must.
The extent to which these actions appeared neutral was just a product of the overwhelming power of the US and overwhelming unity - by virtue of deference - prevalent among the Western powers during the Cold War, in the shadow of a common enemy.
Global neutral institutions exist on a fictional foundation that becomes thinner by the day. For substantial matters on which there is no rational answer, the only solution is the exercise of power.
A lot of Americans believe that power is winning. There's a fight, and the side that wins is the more powerful one. But true power comes from not having anyone question your decisions, such that there is never a fight in the first place. And that's the dynamic I'm commenting on. Eisenhower was a powerful president even though he started no new wars (indeed, he ended the Korean war). With 70%+ approval ratings domestically and unquestioned economic supremacy abroad, he didn't need to.
If you don’t follow sanctions, other banks either with branches doing business in the U.S., or their partner banks, will refuse to continue banking with you out of fear for not following sanctions – which include banks enabling sanction-circumvention. Essentially, even if the bank doesn’t want to deal with USD (which most banks would still like to do!), you’re still bound by the sanctions. A bank won’t survive long or well if it’s cut off from a majority of other banks.
China does this via laws that say, if you do not provide services to Chinese citizens/entities citing foreign sanctions, they can send you to a gulag forever. Seems to be fairly effective, considering how heavily sanctioned Huawei is.
All these hard "immediate consequences" scenarios are pure fiction. Not because they can't become truth, they can. But there's a hundred other possibilities. Literally sticking to the "letter of the law" is just one of them, and not a particularly likely one.
The only solution would be similar to what China exercised. The EU passes an order telling all EU entities to not comply with US sanctions or face legal problems. Then it comes down to how the US responds and whether EU can take that hit.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo...
Unfortunately, the fact that they haven't done this just makes the EU look like a paper tiger.
They could have immediately activated the trade bazooka when Trump was threatening Greenland, but the slower diplomatic approach also worked and led to far less damage on both sides.
The effect of these transitive sanctions is to create trading blocks. If you want to do business with the U.S, you don't do business with sanctioned entities. If other world powers (like China or the EU) want to negate the power of U.S. sanctions, they pass laws that people in their countries must not comply with U.S. sanctions or risk being sanctioned themselves. Now firms are stuck: if they comply with one set of sanctions they are in violation of another, and vice versa, and so it becomes impossible to comply with all of them. Their two options are: 1) comply with their local, national trading bloc and forego the benefits of globalization and trade or 2) become an outlaw, get the benefits of trade, but risk the ire of national authorities.
#2 seems rather unthinkable right now, coming off the Pax Americana, but it was actually quite common during historical periods like the one we're headed into. That's the choice made by pirates during the 1600s; by American colonists in the 1770s; oftentimes by frontier settlers in ~1860s America; and by numerous non-state nations like Jews or Gypsies throughout history. Plus, the Internet and cryptocurrencies and VPNs and Tor and residential proxies all exist. The technology is there for a market state that crosses national boundaries, and the social conditions are building.
Notice I said "outcome" rather than "solution", as I think people can see many things wrong with this. You'll kinda get whatever emerges, which probably is not an improvement on what we had from 1990-2020.
There are strong calls from the EP now for the EC to prepare the blocking statute:
https://www.politico.eu/article/block-us-sanctions-on-the-ic...
https://finance.ec.europa.eu/eu-and-world/open-strategic-aut...
> For the U.S., because sanctioning an “unpleasant”, but in essence harmless individual (geopolitically speaking) is ridiculous. Falling victim to de-banking alone can really ruin one’s life.
Not a good look sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s effective over the near term. Especially if they keep expanding this to include more of the ICC bench.
That’s the whole point of such sanctions anyway. It might feel different because it’s a Canadian judge and not a Russian oligarch. But at the core the USA wants to put pressure on something and the means is indirectly applied to an individual.
Yes, effective in speeding up decoupling of the EU banking system from the US and quickly reducing the use of the systems of Mastercard and Visa. Last year's sanctions on ICC individuals already had a large effect. For instance, the fear of further dependence on US companies has already caused blocking of the sale of the Dutch company Solvinity (who maintain the Dutch digital ID systems) to Kyndryl and has put some countries on the path of moving off Office 365, Exchange and even Windows.
It's just insane stupidity by the US administration. It's very unlikely that an US official would ever be arrested for the ICC, allies wouldn't go there. So, it's just putting Europe on a path to purchase less and less from US service/software companies to protect Benny, who could simply avoid being arrested by not going to a country that joined the ICC.
This is especially ironic given how many Trump supporters had "de-banking" as their main issue.
IIRC most of them were "debanked" due to crypto fraud or other financial crimes.
How would you even know this? Was there a poll done across every Trump supporter where they admitted to committing financial fraud? Do you mean to say Trump's 'pundits' and not his 'supporters'?
Also, the majority of pushback to debanking that I've seen among MAGA types I know IRL is more centered around the 2022 trucker protests and the debatably unjust reaction from the Canadian government.
Legitimate question. Why should a third party (whom I do not respect)’s opinion of me matter to me? Do you care what my cat thinks about you?
and in reply to your dead reply - Argumentum ad absurdum: what I did to highlight the ridiculousness of your comment. You yourself chose an impossible standard of rejecting "unelected bureaucrats". You could have chosen to frame your argument in terms of degrees of democratic accountability. However, you didn't.
I see how you're trying to twist this into an act of "sovereignty" but not signing up is usually a sign that the respective country is a common perpetrator of exactly the type of crime the ICC would convict (war crimes, genocide, that type of thing). And wouldn't you know it, just check out the list ;).
If you commit crimes in another state, expect to be judged according to their system of law (which in this case includes the ICC).
Also worth noting that the ICC issued arrest warrants for (now dead) Hamas leaders.
You know you hit rock bottom when your defense is saying "the terrorist organization also does it". But I have full confidence in you that you will manage to dig yourself even deeper.
1. Around half of Israelis are not from Europe, but from Arab countries (Sephardic). Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria etc.
2. Jews have always lived on this land, for as long as history is recorded. Safed, Tiberias and Jerusalem have had continuous Jewish presence for thousands of years.
3. The land belonged to the British mandate and before to the Ottomans, never a self-governing Palestinian group (which are just Arabs).
4. Palestinians are not fighting for their lives and land; that has been offered many times before, starting in the 1930s with various plans, then with the British partition plan, then many other times culminating in Oslo accords and later in the Gaza disengagement. They could have had one state, two states, autonomy, whatever they wanted. They refused all of those, because their STATED goal is to completely and thoroughly remove Jews from that land, which is considered holy to Islam (Al Aqsa mosque is built on the ruins of the Jewish temple mount). Now when Islam came into being, around the sixth century, Jews were a few thousand years old already. So think about this when you try to attribute the land to this group or that.
Throughly fascinating history for those who want to learn it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwN0K2ZSAoQ
Do you think both sides should accept (and we in the West aggressively incentivise) a two state deal and get on with it, or do you think the Palestinians should fight on to get the whole of Palestine back?
Do you see how you’re arguing based on “centuries of persecution” (not by the Palestinians) but the Palestinians aren’t even offered 80 years of consideration? This blatant and illogical framing is what is being rejected by post-internet generations.
Now, one must ask what would have happened to the Jews in Palestine had they lost that war...