Indeed, they'd have to stop doing that or require them to put up a security deposit.
> Your logic would work, but it is a lot of work for many entities to perform. The simple fact is that neither you nor I can control what the carriers choose to do.
No, this should be required by law. The only one who has to be bound by it is the last mile carrier - the rest is done as a voluntary agreement. If they don't sign it, they can't route calls into the US.
It could be trivially automated. Carrier A sends the message "pay us $X or we depeer you" to carrier B whenever they do not like what they got from carrier B. Their computer system evaluates whether the fine is worth continued peering with A. If it is, they pay, else they don't. This takes milliseconds. There is no need for a human to evaluate the evidence because there is no evidence needed.
Naive implementation:
def accept_fine(this_fine, value_of_continued_peering, tot_fines):
return (value_of_continued_peering > (tot_fines + this_fine))