How to Use bargaining chip in a Sentence

bargaining chip

noun
  • Did the Mafia want a bargaining chip to help free a member from prison?
    Tom Mashberg, New York Times, 18 Mar. 2024
  • John Oliver is using kitchen equipment that used to belong to Red Lobster as a bargaining chip to get his face on a cake.
    Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY, 10 June 2024
  • If Ukraine’s future were to become Trump’s bargaining chip, that could prompt a series of shattering knock-on effects.
    Liana Fix, Foreign Affairs, 22 Mar. 2024
  • In other words, this is a close account of the conflict that laid the foundations for Gaza as a perennial flashpoint — a refuge, a bargaining chip and a battlefield.
    Boris Kachka, Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2023
  • More than 100 men, women and children are still being kept prisoners by Hamas, and this is our only bargaining chip.
    Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 24 Feb. 2024
  • Israel wants female soldiers to be among the hostages released in this group, but Hamas aims to hold on to them as a bargaining chip for a subsequent deal, the former Egyptian official said.
    Hazem Balousha, Washington Post, 27 Feb. 2024
  • That punted the question of future aid to Ukraine and left some Republicans bemoaning how the issue has become a politicized bargaining chip.
    Karoun Demirjian, New York Times, 5 Oct. 2023
  • Three of the defendants, with agreement with the judges and prosecutors, used the charges of illegally possessing firearms as a bargaining chip to get other charges reduced.
    Letter Writers, Twin Cities, 12 May 2024
  • At the time, many Republicans, including the Tea Party group, were pushing for major structural fiscal reforms and saw the debt limit as a bargaining chip.
    Josh Wingrove, Fortune, 28 Feb. 2023
  • As such, hanging on to territory in Kursk could prove a useful bargaining chip, although doing so could come at a high cost in the face of a stronger and more organized response by Russia to the incursion.
    Holly Ellyatt, CNBC, 15 Aug. 2024
  • The people on the frontline are these librarians and teachers who are having an absolute nightmare, all in the name of a political bargaining chip.
    Ct Jones, Rolling Stone, 5 Apr. 2023
  • If McCarthy and his minions refuse to honor their own fiscal obligations, Biden should disregard them; that’s his most valuable bargaining chip.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 15 May 2023
  • China could also use its ability to sit down with all parties as a bargaining chip to pressure other countries to respect its interests.
    Bonny Lin, Foreign Affairs, 17 May 2023
  • King will almost certainly be used as propaganda by North Korea, and later be made a bargaining chip to extract concessions from the United States.
    Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 25 July 2023
  • Others are hoping for a bargaining chip during the negotiating process or are trying to avoid moving into a home that might be a local tourist attraction.
    Rachel Kurzius, Washington Post, 23 Oct. 2023
  • And using emergency aid as a bargaining chip is not exactly an unknown behavior on Capitol Hill.
    Baltimore Sun Editorial Board, Baltimore Sun, 3 Apr. 2024
  • The group has already effectively held hostage more than two dozen of Parson’s nominees for statewide agencies, boards and commissions as a bargaining chip with Senate leadership.
    Kacen Bayless, Kansas City Star, 24 Jan. 2024
  • More than just a work of art — or a metaphor for an oppressed people’s revenge fantasy — the contraption becomes a bargaining chip in a desperate bid by Indian royalty to fend off British conquest.
    Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times, 5 Dec. 2023
  • Francis had not committed any crimes in Venezuela, but Maduro’s government kept him in detention in the hope of using him as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with the Biden administration.
    Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 20 Dec. 2023
  • Decades later, the state similarly used unresolved water rights as a bargaining chip, asking tribes to agree not to pursue the main method of expanding their reservations in exchange for settling their water claims.
    Mark Olalde, ProPublica, 17 Oct. 2023
  • The timing of his arrest, two weeks after a Russian national pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court of acting as a foreign agent, fueled speculation that Whelan was to be used as a bargaining chip.
    Alex Horton, Washington Post, 1 Aug. 2024
  • In courtrooms across America, prosecutors and defense lawyers every day hash out charges against green card holders with deportation as a key bargaining chip.
    Daniel Barnes, NBC News, 24 May 2023
  • The potential of a Microsoft deal also served as a useful bargaining chip for Apple when negotiating its lucrative search deal with Google.
    Jon Porter, The Verge, 5 Oct. 2023
  • By taking away developers’ ability to propose large projects, the state could take away a powerful bargaining chip, some developers say.
    Kate Talerico, The Mercury News, 14 Apr. 2024
  • The major wrench thrown into this negotiation happens to be LeBron’s son as a possible bargaining chip for opposing teams.
    Michael Saponara, Billboard, 25 June 2024
  • In the early American republic, amid the negotiations in Philadelphia, the capital was used—for the first of many times—as a political bargaining chip.
    Matt Ford, The New Republic, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Republican leaders had hoped to use holding an impeachment inquiry vote as a bargaining chip that could win over the support of some hard-right lawmakers on supporting a government funding bill.
    Marianna Sotomayor, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Amy B Wang, Jacqueline Alemany, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 15 Sep. 2023
  • But as a soldier and US citizen, King also gives Pyongyang a potentially powerful bargaining chip.
    Brad Lendon, CNN, 19 July 2023
  • Teams were not to negotiate against one another, and any player found to be using one team as a bargaining chip to elicit a more lucrative salary from a rival would be immediately blacklisted.
    Ahmed Al Omran, New York Times, 13 July 2023
  • There’s also about $4 billion in budgeted but uncommitted money for public education that could be used as a bargaining chip.
    Gromer Jeffers Jr., Dallas News, 17 July 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bargaining chip.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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