Battleangel

On a whim, development aid money is being confiscated by US banks under the guise of anti-terror legislation.

Swedish trade union confederation LO-TCO has had its development aid money confiscated by an American bank. The money had been earmarked for a project in Liberia but the bank, citing US anti-terrorism laws, blocked the payment and initially refused to pay the money back.

Swedish and Norwegian aid organisations have both encountered instances in which American terror laws have halted the flow of international development aid.

“The American bank demanded to know exactly which organisations the money was aimed for. We refused and asked the bank to resolve the situation.

“This they duly did, but they only paid the money back when Föreningssparbanken’s lawyers threatened to sue the American bank,” said Håkan Löndahl, LO-TCO’s development aid manager.

Norwegian aid agency Kirkens Nödhjelp says that it had hundreds of thousands of kronor confiscated by American authorities a few years ago. The money was intended for countries that the USA disliked, Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reports.

Fortunately, this sort of politicized nonsense only hurts the US in the long run as organizations are individuals are increasingly aware of the deeply problematic dollar situation, even going so far as to avoiding making payments in dollars. If that ball ever gets rolling, the United States will be in big financial trouble. Not to say that it isn’t already, but it is currently being kept afloat by foreign investment and an artificial dollar trade spurred by the status of the dollar as an oil and reserve currency.