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A chokepoint is a node in a global network that the US or its allies dominate and that others cannot easily route around, such as dollar clearing, SWIFT messaging, advanced semiconductor tools, insurance for tanker shipping, or oil markets. Coercive power comes from threatening to deny access to that node, not from trade volume or GDP. Denial therefore imposes costs far larger than the direct bilateral economic relationship.
In 2005, Treasury used Section 311 of the Patriot Act to label a small Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, a 'primary money laundering concern' for handling North Korean funds. That single designation triggered a run on the bank, froze roughly $25 million in North Korean accounts, and led banks worldwide to cut ties with Pyongyang voluntarily. The case became the template for the Iran campaign, in which officials such as Stuart Levey persuaded foreign banks that North Korean or Iranian business was not worth risking their access to the US dollar.
Within days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US, EU, UK and other G7 partners immobilized about $300 billion of the Bank of Russia's foreign reserves held in their jurisdictions. This disabled the 'fortress Russia' war chest that Moscow had built after the 2014 Crimea sanctions. It was the first time such measures hit a G20 central bank, and it showed that allied coordination, not US action alone, determines whether a chokepoint actually closes.
Each use of a chokepoint teaches targets and bystanders to build workarounds. Examples include China's CIPS payment system, renminbi trade settlement, shadow tanker fleets, gold accumulation, and domestic chip industries. Economic warfare's effectiveness is therefore a depleting asset: it must be used selectively and with allies, because overuse accelerates the construction of the alternative networks that make future sanctions weaker.