cudgel

The use of tariff threats as a cudgel to try to save an ally from legal peril also gives lie to the purported rationale behind tariffs: protecting U.S. manufacturers or correcting trade imbalances.

“Because people will say, ‘Well, this is just basically a cudgel, there’s not an issue at all, and it’s just being exploited.’”

But in other circumstances, the law became a powerful cudgel wielded to influence concerns that at best had a tangential relationship to the environment.

Trump, meanwhile, is opposing Maine on conservative ideological grounds using federal funding as the cudgel to prevail.

None of which made it a less effective cudgel.