Tuesday, January 20, 2015

‘2015 Could Be The Year We Witness The ‘Weaponization Of Finance’

“Forget nukes and battleships. Washington may increasingly flex its geopolitical muscle in 2015 using an unconventional weapon: finance.
Access to the US marketplace and US banks, and Washington’s ability and willingness to use them, are becoming more important as instruments of foreign and security policy,” Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer writes.
“There is no better example of this trend than the weaponization of finance — the systematic use of carrots (access to capital markets) and sticks (varied types of sanctions) as tools of coercive diplomacy,” he says.”
Exactly what FATCA is.
And it is being turned on allies like Canada and the UK, just as it is being turned on Russia, etc.
The US Treasury wanted NO exceptions for FATCA and the IGAs. Too much work. Just point the FATCA gun and wave it around in everyone’s face.
The article goes on to describe the drawbacks of this approach for the US;
“…….Although the “weaponization of finance” is a way to exert force without direct military conflict, the US risks further complicating political relations. And the strategy may see only limited success.”

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