US sanctions go far beyond that. As I said, US sanctions are designed to be highly "infectious," so that activities that don't seem to have any US connection fa

US sanctions go far beyond that. As I said, US sanctions are designed to be highly "infectious," so that activities that don't seem to have any US connection fall under the US sanctions regime. The world economy is tightly interconnected, so almost any economic activity anywhere on Earth has at least some incidental, indirect connection to the US (and to China, and to the EU). Imposing such a wide-ranging secondary sanctions regime is extremely disruptive, and it's viewed by other countries as an attack on their sovereignty. When Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, he effectively forced the EU to also renege on the deal, because US sanctions banned virtually every EU company from doing business with Iran. The EU could no longer determine its own trade and foreign policy with Iran. The answer to this is probably for other countries that want to retain their sovereignty to impose retaliatory sanctions on the US when it targets their companies. The EU is not sufficiently politically unified to do this, though, and most other countries/blocs (except for China) don't have the heft to go one-on-one against the US.