The Trump Administration revels in the idea that they have leverage. We learned this early in the administration when Trump personally dressed down the President of Ukraine (who can forget “you don’t have the cards”, to which Zelensky replied “I’m not playing cards” and has successfully launched multiple drone attacks that have devastated the Russian Air Force). The Administration has chosen extortion (instead of laws) to achieve its objectives. Sometimes it works, sometimes it has not (and embarrassingly so). But it is clear that the weaknesses in American law allow this to happen.

Early on, the Administration aggressively attacked its ‘enemies list’ of lawyers and law firms, prohibiting them access to Federal courts. Some of the largest firms in the country decided to kowtow to the Administration and agree to spend a total of $1 Billion in pro-bono legal services to unspecified initiatives to regain access to the courts. The outcome for the settling firms has been a mass exodus of litigation attorneys (the bread and butter of the firms) and a reputational stain on them for future recruiting. This is in contrast to the firms that chose to say no to the Administration and challenge them in court (i.e. Perkins Coie) – and won.

The extortionist attack on universities (and their research funding) is full of specious legal drivel to justify its attempt to allow the US government to control the operation of both public and private universities in the country. The demands range from the explicitly legal (non-discrimination in hiring, Title VI violations around antisemitic activity) to the blatantly illegal (oversight of admissions, balance of political viewpoints). It has largely been a shakedown – pay to get your grants. Brown University, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania (where President Trump attended college) have settled in order to keep the funding flowing. Harvard, notably, has chosen to take the administration to court. Recently the University of California, Los Angeles has been asked for $1 Billion to settle (mind you, the government has not sued the state – they would have to go to court and prove their accusations – good luck with that). But in the meantime, $600 million in grants are suspended to UCLA (and you can bet that funding cuts to the rest of the UC system are close behind). Mind you, red state universities are facing cuts too – the University of North Carolina system is facing over $100 million in cuts (even ahead of a very competitive Senate race year) and even Alabama universities have not been exempt (because they are a hotbed of DEI idealism). But like the attorneys, the leverage only exists if the settlements keep coming.

The biggest extortion money is in tariff policy. It starts with large multinational companies like Hyundai and Apple. When Hyundai announces a large investment of $21 Billion in the next few years, what they are really doing is highlighting investments already planned in an attempt to gain favor with the Administration (and the Administration can’t be ecstatic about investments in roboticized electric vehicle plants that have negligible employment boosts). Apple is vulnerable to tariffs from Chinese imports, but their investments here ($500 Billion for 20,000 jobs) are not about making iPhones here – they are about R&D, AI, and software development (with some server manufacturing thrown in). In other words, no consumer products. The rest of the extortion racket has been about removing import limits in other countries (i.e. Japan, EU, Indonesia) and trying to achieve other objectives (for instance the extra tariff on India to stop them from importing Russian oil). These agreements (or in the case of India and Canada, lack of agreements) have turned out to be paper tigers. Europeans are not going to buy US autos that are too big, technologically inferior, and fuel inefficient. Canadian tariff caps on imports from the US (like wheat) have never had relevance since imports have never approached the cap. Meanwhile, the Administration will be extorting billions of dollars from American businesses and consumers to pay for the 16.2% increased rate in average tariffs – amounting to the equivalent of the average per household income loss of $2,400 in 2025 per the Yale Budget Lab. All we all have to do is continue to vote Republican and this can be our reward!

Meanwhile, trust in the United States is destroyed. And the national disgrace continues…