Make It Painful to Collaborate with Trump

1. A price to pay

During the Second World War, my Polish family hosted in their Warsaw apartment a young resistance fighter whose job was to assassinate Poles who collaborated with the Nazis. Such were the stakes in that terrible moment. Fearful and hungry people often felt pressure to give information to the Nazi occupiers, whether for money or food or to avoid being deported or shot. If their sense of honor was not enough to prevent them from betraying their country, the underground resistance gave them something more tangible to worry about.¹

Nothing in our current American situation comes close to what people experience under genuine tyranny or foreign occupation. We still have our freedom to speak, protest, vote, and seek redress in court; many individual Americans and institutions (like Harvard University) are pushing back and doing fine. I’d still bet history will look back on Donald Trump as a wannabe dictator who miserably failed.

But after two months of watching the man trying to dismantle the government, defy the courts, and dare us to stop him, we have to acknowledge that the possibility of losing democracy is real, and start considering questions Americans have little experience facing.

While reading JVL’s Triad last week about how Trump induces collaboration from law firms, universities, and foreign countries, and his proposal for a Democratic “Avengers Initiative” to punish the enablers, I couldn’t help thinking about my family’s stories from a darker time. The common thread is that leaders with authoritarian intentions (whether fully realized or not) deliberately force cruel choices on people: Either betray your ideals and your friends and become compromised, or risk a punishment you fear.

What’s more, such leaders assume that their more principled opponents will never respond in kind, which gives them a certain advantage. As Jonathan writes:

Trump’s Wager says that liberal institutions should collaborate with an authoritarian, because if the authoritarian proves durable, then they will be saved. But if the liberal order reasserts itself, they do not have to fear retribution, since liberalism doesn’t do retribution.

The question for Trump’s opponents therefore becomes: Should we start threatening costs of our own on those who, whether out of fear or opportunism, enable Trump’s authoritarian actions and corruption? Can we even the scales and deter collaboration without violating the very principles we’re fighting to defend, and without becoming a mirror image of our opponents? If so, how?

These questions are easiest to answer—in the affirmative—when it comes to Trump’s foreign enablers. And the Salvadoran president, Najib Bukele, presents the clearest case because has crossed a line that few foreign dictators ever have: Not only is he relishing the support of an American president for human rights abuses in his own country; he is engaging in a conspiracy with that president to subvert the rule of law in America itself.

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Democrats in Congress should introduce legislation now that would impose the most crushing possible sanctions, including asset freezes on Bukele and every member of his government, along with Trumpian tariffs on El Salvador’s exports, if Bukele doesn’t return Kilmar Abrego Garcia and cooperate with all U.S. court orders regarding migrants sent to El Salvador. The bill could also hit Bukele’s weakest spot, by establishing a commission to investigate his dirty deals with the leaders of gangs like MS-13, and whether the Trump administration protected Bukele by returning imprisoned gang leaders to El Salvador before they could testify against him in American courts.

Of course, no such bill would pass a Republican-controlled Congress. The point would be to remind Bukele that the political pendulum in the United States will eventually shift and that his fate then will depend on his actions now.

Bukele is not the only foreign tyrant who might have an incentive and the means to help Trump’s project succeed. For example, wealthy Persian Gulf dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been happy to enrich Trump’s family personally in exchange for influence, and for the pleasure of watching America’s democratic star set.

Then there are those foreign governments that will feel pressure to do Trump personal favors (or in Trump’s words, “kissing my ass”) to avoid his tariffs. Vietnam, for example, is reportedly protecting itself by speeding up approvals for a $1.5 billion Trump resort. I’ve heard plenty of stories about Washington lobbyists and consultants advising foreign governments to get to know members of Trump’s family and to be friendly to their business interests as they negotiate trade deals.

Democrats in Congress should start signaling now that those who play this game will pay a price down the road. They should announce that they will hold investigative hearings the moment they regain control of the House or Senate into inappropriate dealings related to tariff negotiations. They should introduce legislation expanding reporting requirements under the Foreign Agent Registration Act to include contacts with presidents’ family members, top advisers, and companies they own, and allowing the Commerce Department to restrict investments in the United States made by foreign sovereign wealth funds (such as those run by the Gulf monarchies) if there is evidence those funds have sought to buy political influence rather than normal commercial advantage. They should call every foreign ambassador to a meeting in the Capitol to brief them on what lines cannot be crossed and to provide a warning that a future Democratic Congress and administration will hold them accountable with sanctions and even criminal investigations if they break the rules.

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