Before continuing, it’s worth noting that Trump is incorrectly quoting the source to which he links (Fox News Latino). The $22 billion figure is for all remittances from the U.S. to Mexico in 2013, not only those involving illegal immigrants.

But my issue here isn’t bad math. It’s the idea that Trump thinks he’d be able to use remittances as a major cudgel in 2017 (which is when the next president would be sworn in). While most of these payments today are made via traditional wire transfers, more and more of them are being made via bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Not only are such exchanges cheaper than traditional wire transfers, but they are faster and would be virtually impossible for the U.S. government to block (given that Bitcoin transfers don’t include identifying information that could be matched against federal identification databases). There is even a service that lets people in the U.S. send Bitcoin to ATMs in Mexico, where the intended recipient can withdraw their money in pesos.