A saleswoman serves customers at a Huawei shop in Beijing, China, December 12, 2018. Jason Lee | Reuters

Washington's decision to arrest a Huawei executive over the Chinese telecoms giant's business dealings with Iran seems hypocritical, according to veteran economist Stephen Roach. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 at the request of the U.S. government over allegations that she misled international banks about Iran-linked transactions that are in breach of American sanctions. She has since been released on bail and is due to appear in a Canadian court in February.

Canadian officials insist the arrest wasn't politically motivated, but it's widely seen as a means for President Donald Trump to gain leverage in the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. "A number of financial institutions, including JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and international banks, were all judged guilty and paid enormous fines for violating sanctions in the last several years," Roach told CNBC's Eunice Yoon on Friday. "None of their executives, of course, went to jail — why is Huawei being singled out for the sanctions violations?" Iran, in 2015, was removed from the United Nations' sanctions list when the country agreed to a deal on its nuclear program. Washington, however, withdrew from that accord earlier this year and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran. The U.S. is the only one "trying to enforce something that the international community is going the other way on," Roach said.