With the exception of Singapore (AMEX:EWS), China is the last country to not receive an exemption from sanctions set to go into effect on June 28th. The U.S. (and their lapdogs in the E.U., sorry folks its true) has demanded that everyone stop trading with Iran in any way or face the same restriction on doing business with them that Iran is currently dealing with. In a move last night that shows just how toothless this whole bit of posturing has been the U.S. issued exemptions to India, Malaysia, South Korea, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan, who apparently cut their imports enough to satisfy Frau Clinton.
But for China and Singapore the exemptions were not granted, which for Singapore is odd since the island city-state has cut their importation of Iranian oil almost completely. My pet theory is that this is nothing more than a means by which to attack the rising banking centers in Singapore and Hong Kong where billions in capital have been flowing.
Hong Kong (AMEX:EWH) is still one of the few places left on Earth where U.S. citizens can hide their money from the I.R.S. while Singapore has been very methodically passing new legislation to attract major investment capital of a non-predatory nature to its exchanges; moves which include forcing all OTC derivatives involving Singaporean entities to flow through transparent clearinghouses and removing all transaction taxes on gold and silver bullion.
China’s (AMEX:FXI) response was to pretty much tell the U.S. State Dept. to get stuffed.
Singapore is desperately trying to persuade the U.S. that they have complied, but it doesn’t sound from this article that they will be successful. The timing of this along with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta making the SE Asian rounds shoring up support and announcing new base openings is at best suspicious.
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