GeoLegal Weekly #53 - Front-Stabbing and Target Lists
Trump's making a list. He's checking it twice. You don't want to end up on it.
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Target Lists
One framework I’m thinking about in terms of assessing risk for companies, countries and individuals is the idea of target lists. We’re witnessing an unprecedented assault by the the White House on US federal employees and government departments; on individual citizens, like anyone of undocumented or temporary protected status; on countries that have tried to slow it down (Colombia), done something it doesn’t like (South Africa), appear to tolerate drug and migrant crossings into America (Mexico), generally make maple syrup and often have better manners (Canada), or some combination of unfair trade behavior along with precursors for illegal drugs and all-around competition (China). Soon we will likely see the same thing on CEOs and businesses.
Politically, you may cheer or decry each of these policies. However, the act of creating “naughty lists” and acting without restraint against those on them is novel for the US.
In countries like China, winding up on the wrong list can limit your job or credit opportunities, if not worse. Thus, Chinese citizens are careful what they say inside their borders, when traveling or living abroad and especially online.
In the US, where reams of data exist about each of us, largely for the monetization pleasure of large technology companies, it’s worth pausing to consider if your social contract with the government is also being rewritten, increasing the chance your name will end up on a target list.
Front-Stabbing
“Where I come from, we stab people in the front!” a colleague at an old job once yelled menacingly in a management meeting that had gone awry.
I noted the phrase - and also to watch my front in his hometown of Philly. I was struck when Anthony Scaramucci, a New Yorker who served as Trump’s communication director for 11 days, used the same phrase. It seems the “front-stabbing” region is big and covers both where President Trump grew up and went to college.
You could do worse than summarize the Trump administration’s meta-philosophy as “front-stab first and ask questions later.” Indeed, on everything from migrants to tariffs, this is no doubt the crux of an America First foreign policy that gets other countries to hand over their lunch money by bloodying their nose rather than sneaking up on them. America’s allies are noticing: As Ontario’s conservative-leaning leader Doug Ford recently said, he was happy Trump won “then the guy pulled out the knife and f–ing yanked it into us.”
As odd as it is to stab your allies, this philosophy has very different implications when turned on one’s own country. The scale of the political purge now happening in the US is more open and unapologetic than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime, including during Trump’s first term.
One of the differences between democratic regimes and more autocratic ones is the tenor of political purges.
While British parliamentary debates may seem much more cordial than US political discourse, their artful turns of phrase conceal the fact that in British politics, political stabs often land in the back during midnight shifts of support or “reshuffles”. This is often after many rounds of discourse and failed attempts at cajoling. And the fallen are able to rise again, as with Boris below.
In democracies, we are accustomed to back-stabbing; in authoritarian regimes, front-stabbing is arguably the norm and purges usually accompany a new leader. This can be particularly spontaneous and vicious. When Saddam Hussein rose to power in Iraq in 1979, he called together all members of the government, read out names of members to be executed, and congratulated a nervously clapping room of those left for their loyalty (videotaping it too). In other countries, critics are literally fed to actual dogs (well, only in North Korea.)
Fortunately, that’s not where the US is headed. But the point remains that if you operate in a regime of purges and punishment, you need to be aware of even the smallest transgression. Trump’s purges feel a lot like Chinese President Xi’s anti-corruption purges, as in the case of Bo Xilai. For business leaders, the silencing of Jack Ma is a cautionary parable.
You’re on the List
The most interesting piece is how systematic the purges are. More than just pardoning January 6 rioters, Trump is now drawing up lists of FBI agents and Department of Justice agents that worked on January 6 cases or investigated Trump himself.This is very different, as many of those employees were not ringleaders but bureaucratic apparatchiks doing the work of their prior bosses. They were doing the lawful work of the United States at that time.
He’s similarly crafted a list of inspectors general and shown them the door. This is the same with the rooting out of anything DEI in government. A list of employees with related job titles no doubt was leveraged. But even more so, lists are being produced of employees who simply ran related trainings. Still want to list your pronouns in US government email? Well, that’s an easy thing to find - and you’ll wind up on a list.
On an individual level, many undocumented immigrants voluntarily came out of the shadows to register for drivers licenses in places like California in order to enable them to get car insurance. In the process, they have potentially put themselves on a list that can be mined in the future (this story from 2017 has echoes of today). Or perhaps it is being mined already, as state officials are being threatened with jail time for failing to turn over whatever data the federal government requests.
It would be pointless to list all the government agencies that have data on all of us through the course of a normally functioning government. What’s worth noting is that this data can and has been weaponized in the past, for instance, when conservative groups were targeted by the IRS. Noting that Elon Musk now appears to have full access to Treasury payment systems and possibly to the personal tax information of his enemies and competitors is a unique twist.
What’s more interesting is to think about the times we opt-in to increasing government surveillance as a trade-off for convenience or because we don’t expect it to be weaponized. In times of crisis, citizens opt-in to things like COVID-era apps which subsequently generate reams of health and location data that could be weaponized in the future. On some level, we had to assume good intentions by the government at the time in order to return to social life. But all that data can now be used for different purposes.
I think too about services like Global Entry and TSA Pre-check where users trade additional biometrics and information about themselves for convenience. By inviting the government to more deeply scrutinize you, the idea was always that if you’re not one of the baddies, you can go in the fast lane. But now, it’s not clear what all that extra data will be used for.
It may be the same with our social media data. It’s one thing to know that you shouldn’t post messages you don’t want to show-up on the front page of the newspaper (frankly, many of us post on LinkedIn hoping some day our deep thoughts WILL land there…) But it’s another to realize that platforms like X (previously Twitter) are run by one of the president’s closest allies, and platforms like Facebook run by some of the president’s newest “friends.” Will big data systems process our interests, likes, private messages and similar for the purposes of finding out if we are political allies or enemies? And what’s the consequence for being the latter? It doesn’t seem so far-fetched to think about any more.
Oh, and of course all that data can be stolen by enemies too. So it’s not just the risk the government shifts into a combative posture but also the risk it hollows out defenses and leaves our sensitive data exposed to enemies who can manipulate us.
Business Implications
There are a few implications that fall out of this.
First, realize that the room for discretion, negotiation and explanation is being narrowed. We are not in an environment where a business will be asked why it has done certain things that run counter to the president’s policies. We are in an environment where enemies end up on lists. Yes, many of these actions are being challenged in court and some of them will be stopped. But that will be cold comfort as making yourself an even bigger enemy by winning in court will just beget further action.
Second, beware retaliation from all this front-stabbing. It’s one thing to be a bully - it’s another thing to be the bully’s younger sibling. Those who are aggrieved may well retaliate against the soft targets they find and don’t fear, like American businesses. On the tariff front, businesses have been preparing for retaliatory actions. But a lot of this will bleed out of the tariff channel and have collateral damage. It’s no surprise an investigation into Google for antitrust in China was announced on the same day as retaliatory tariffs, followed by murmors of an investigation into Apple. China will also escalate onto industries and geographies that support the president, like agriculture. The heat will be hotter for those companies perceived to be close to the president.
Third, realize that business leaders may well be targeted - which is not necessarily a recipe for collaboration but rather for complexity. It’s one thing to tread lightly to not end up on the president’s bad side. It’s another to decide to fully align and risk downside from foreign retaliation or consumer groups that don’t appreciate it. Alignment now is more than just funding his inauguration–we’re seeing Trump’s personal legal cases against tech and media companies be settled out of court with substantial payments to Trump himself. When the US government asks a tech company to unlock an email account because of a terrorist threat, that’s one thing. When the ask is for a political threat, it’s another. The closer you are to the president, the harder it will be to say no. And the higher the price will be from America’s adversaries, for real or for the moment.
Finally, prepare for multi-standard deviation outcomes when it comes to anything related to US government business. Everyone knew that Trump didn’t like foreign aid. No one really thought that the entire US foreign aid infrastructure would be targeted. Take nothing for granted with respect to any business you do with the US government. The entire contractor community dependent on USAID is now waking up to the fact that the US may no longer be a patron of foreign aid and, thus, third parties in the middle will prove to be fundamentally useless. Today it is foreign aid, but tomorrow it can be broader procurement for the military of planes and vehicles or for the government of computers. There is a massive rethink of the shape and size of government and it is going to be an uncertain four years for your business in that space.
–SW