The US can switch off the dollar for any bank in any country

The US can switch off the dollar for any bank in any country, and it's moved against three in a month.

How it works

• Almost every dollar payment in the world settles at a US bank, even between two companies outside America
• So a foreign bank that wants to use the dollar needs an account at a US bank, called a correspondent account
• Washington can take that access away by its own decision, without a court and without asking the country the bank sits in

What's happening

• Last month the US Treasury launched Operation Economic Outcast, a campaign to cut Iran off from the global financial system
• Four days later it proposed cutting Banque Misr UAE off from the dollar, saying 103 suspected front companies moved 1.8 billion dollars through it
• It has since sanctioned Golden Global Bank in Türkiye and VTB, one of Russia's biggest banks, under the same campaign
• The Dubai rule also makes US banks block payments that arrive through other banks if Banque Misr UAE is involved, so every bank in the chain has to check its own customers

The target is Iran, but three banks, three countries and one month shows how little it takes for the US to decide who gets to use the world's main currency.