Damn, when these people are bought, they STAY bought

When an alleged Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States in February, some U.S. officials were confident the incursion would galvanize the U.S. bureaucracy to push forward a slate of actions to counter China.

Instead, the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship, according to four sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy, as well as internal emails seen by Reuters.
...
The sources said many measures have yet to be revived. The decision to postpone export licensing rules for telecom equipment maker Huawei and sanctions against Chinese officials for abuses of Uyghurs, has damaged morale at China House, they said.

So, instead of actually doing something about it, they basically paid the PRC for doing a bad thing.  To 'avoid damaging the relationship' with people who want us all dead or enslaved.

What would be our version of the Tarpeian Rock to throw these people off of?