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The government where the commercial company is based expects the company to do so, and will hold that company accountable if they do not.

You may not agree with this situation, but it is how it works. The US government will investigate and penalize companies that violate US sanctions, even if the parts of those companies involved did so entirely outside of the US.

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Yep, the current US administration is somewhat to blame on the shift. It has always been a requirement, it's just that the government up until this admin mostly didn't care to enforce it. It's pretty obvious a number of companies got threatening letters to comply or face jail time.

When I did some googling, I found an article from 2012 about sanctions enforcement (https://www.itproportal.com/2012/10/26/ibm-questioned-over-a...). I am unaware of new behavior regarding sanctions enforcement, although I know that the current administration imposed additional sanctions. But my understanding is that with existing sanctions, this is what the US government has always done.

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