The US famously uses acts like FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), or the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) to indirectly get industrial assets (like Alstom that got bought by GE after a 700 million $ fine) and intelligence through their monitoring actions.
If you get fined for those acts, and you have no links to and no interest in the US market, what can the US do to force you to own up and pay?
If you do something the US really dislikes, they can prohibit their companies and citizens from trading with you, and from trading with any company or person who trades with you. That will cause most, but not all, companies or persons to stop trading with you -- they do not want to destroy their chances to trade with the US.
You might note that there are plenty of Chinese who do trade with North Korea, despite US disapproval. For them, the benefits are greater than the risks. And during the Trump administration, the EU briefly defied the US over Iran sanctions.
Question:
If you get fined for those acts (FCPA and OFAC), and you have no links to and no interest in the US market, what can the US do to force you to own up and pay?
The FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) prohibits American citizens or entities (corporations) from "from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests.". So it's only used against US citizens or US corporations. The Act carries both criminal and civil penalties. So both jail and fines are on the table. It doesn't apply to foreign companies or individuals.
The OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) is an enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It is in charge of pursuing sanctions against foreign countries or organizations typically not individuals. When the President decides to institute a sanction this office administers the enforcement of said sanction. Foreign countries and regimes who fall under this preview are, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other threats to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.
The sanctions can be either comprehensive or selective, and are pursued by freezing assets, (not seizing them. Seizing takes a specific act of congress) and or trade restrictions typically. Those entities are not entitled to do business in the U.S. It's also possible for foreign entities doing business with sanctioned entities, like banks, manufactures, etc to face trade restrictions too. So we sanction an Iranian dept involved in it's nuclear program for example, then any bank or company which does business with Iran's sanctioned dept could be restricted from US markets just like the sanctioned organization.
They can trumped-up a charge and arbitrarily detain the CFO (who is also the daughter of the boss) of the said company as she stops at any country under US domination. While they do that, the US would use the media under their control to spread propaganda about the case and at the same time, hide any evidence not in their favour and use political pressure to accelerate the extradition process. They would hint at that if the company caves to US pressure and give them what they want, the charges would disappear and the CFO would be freed.
