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The United States has long used its economic and financial power to pursue its foreign policy goals. Often, these interventions have interfered in the activities of foreign companies and, in some cases, frustrated the United States’ closest allies.

But last week the European Union announced a novel plan to evade Washington’s reach.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s top diplomat, said the bloc was setting up a “special payments entity” that would work to shield non-American companies from the United States’ economic actions against Iran. President Trump this year abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran, which included France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China, and his administration has been reimposing sanctions as it seeks to extract concessions from Tehran.

Big questions loom over the European Union’s plan to create a money-transfer system to help Iran. Among them: Can this entity help sustain a meaningful amount of trade with Iran? Can it be safeguarded from the United States’ financial sleuths? Will it require significant use by two of America’s biggest adversaries, China and Russia, to really work?