At the request of the U.S., Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested on December 1 by Canadian authorities as she changed planes in Vancouver. Judgment on Friday's Supreme Court bail hearing in British Columbia was deferred until Monday.

In the meantime, a group of vocal U.S- China watchers and other foreign policy analysts have continued to support the reasons behind the arrest. Their arguments have focused around the belief that the origins of the arrest are a simple matter of jurisprudence and her having allegedly “broken the law,” rather than political opportunism being at play concerning Washington's foreign policy.

These responses, however, are misleading. They fail to point out how Washington's system of unilateral sanctions and designations creates a politicized overlap with the criminal justice system which allows it to be utilized by the executive for distinct foreign policy purposes. In this area, “law” is very much an extension of American diplomacy, one which is applied selectively, inconsistently and opportunistically.

Firstly, what exactly are “American Unilateral Sanctions” and how are they incorporated into the law? As the name suggests, such sanctions concern the legal blacklisting of individuals, companies, and nations from doing business in the United States.

This excludes the given target from the dollar system, which because of American dominance of the global economy, in turn, excludes them from the international banking system and oil system. In turn, such measures also make it a criminal offense for American citizens to deal with those who have been listed. What is most troublesome, however, is that this principle applies, albeit unevenly, to overseas actors who also deal with the target.

There are two avenues by which such sanctions can be implemented, firstly through an act of Congress which creates new legislation, such as sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 2018, or alternatively through an executive order signed by the United States President, as what has happened with the recent Iran sanctions. When authorized, the sanctions are put into operation by the United States Department of the Treasury, currently overseen by Steven Mnuchin.

Unilateral sanctions may be applied for a number of purposes. Sometimes, they are very much legitimate. For example, Washington may want to take action against a terrorist group, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or prevent international crime syndicates from operating in the United States.

However, often and most predominantly in the Trump administration, such sanctions are used instead as a coercive tool of foreign policy. This is not determined on any jurisdictional grounds, but is a matter of preference, leading law and politics to collide unfavorably.

The Iran sanctions, after all, were not based on truth, but false speculation disproven by experts. All in all, by blacklisting targets from dollar transactions, American administrations on their own request can put unilateral pressure on countries or organizations they don't like, intentionally creating a deterrent effect by making other businesses and institutions avoid them. There is a long history of doing so.

Thus, rather than being applied arbitrarily and unanimously, as one might expect from the law, the inevitable application of these measures as a feature of international relations means that the enforcement of such sanctions in action is utilized selectively and in accordance to political priority.

For example, when the Republic of Korea (ROK) wanted to fly a plane to Pyongyang in order to facilitate negotiations in early 2018, the journey would have violated American sanctions which imposed a ban on any aviation craft from entering the U.S. if it went to the DPRK. At Seoul's request, America allowed it. Similarly, a number of countries were also given exemptions from Iran sanctions to continue importing oil, which would be used arbitrarily against anyone else.

Likewise, when banks in Seoul wanted to economically engage with the DPRK, Washington openly threatened them with measures if they did so. In essence, diplomatic preference is what is driving the decisions being made. “Violators” are only punished if America finds it convenient.

As another example, while the administration has blacklisted some banks accused of violating DPRK sanctions, it has ignored larger ones also suspected because of potential repercussions to the global financial system. Ultimately, sanctions are but an extension of such diplomacy and national interest, rendering them subordinate to such.

Therefore, when U.S analysts claim that the Huawei case is simply about “breaking the law” and not politics, it simply isn't convincing. Because unilateral sanctions are merely an application of the law used exclusively and in pursuit of political goals. It's not about base jurisprudence, it is about preference and there is a long history of such inconsistencies to prove that. After all, it has been reported that Eriksson and Nokia have operated in Iran, contrary to American sanctions, yet neither have been punished or threatened.

In summary, the argument that the application and enforcement of U.S unilateral sanctions in the case of Meng Wanzhou don't stand up to scrutiny. Unilateral sanctions are about foreign policy and foreign policy is by nature, pragmatic, self-interested and selective. This illustrates the classic problem of “long arm jurisdiction” in the United States, where it believes that on a unilateral level it has the right to set a measure and make the world subject to it, but only according to preference, of course.