California to negotiate trade with other countries to bypass Trump tariffs
California to negotiate trade with other countries to bypass Trump tariffs
www.newsweek.com
California to negotiate trade with other countries to bypass Trump tariffs
338 comments
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Unfortunately this runs into constitutional problems. While the spineless subhuman creatures in congress and the supreme court seem to have no problem with Trump and his administration ignoring the constitution I fully expect them to come down hard on any state that does so (at least in cases that go against Trump and his policies).
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Don't have to care about being unconstitutional if you're not part of the union.
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That's great in theory but just as unrealistic in practice for California as it always has been for Texas. The single biggest stumbling block for any state to leave the union for any reason is the military. Most of the other problems can be resolved within the borders of the state, but the disposition of existing and theoretical new military hardware, personnel, and bases will always be a sticking point even assuming the federal government and the other states are willing to let them leave.
Any attempt to leave the US that has any hope of succeeding would be a very long and protracted process that would make Brexit look breakneck in comparison. We're talking at least a couple decades at a minimum.
It's either that or another civil war and that has so many variables I'm not sure anyone has any hope of predicting how that would turn out.
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Water is more of an issue than the military. The US relies heavily on California for food so that would be a bargaining chip.
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Economics in general. California is responsible for a significant chunk of the entire US GDP as well as being one of the primary shipping hubs. My point was more along the lines that these other problems are tractable, you could for instance negotiate trade deals between the rest of the US and California. The military on the other hand is a much tougher problem akin to unscrambling an egg. There's no obvious way to disentangle California from the greater US military.
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Any military option automatically removes any economic benefits that could have been possible in peace time. As soon as any conflict appears, everyone will spend more money on fighting, defending that in saving or creating profit. No matter who may "win", everyone will lose and it would take decades to recover from it.
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Did you mean to respond to someone else? This seems like a bit of a non-sequitur from my comment.
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That's how you get invaded by the military
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Thankfully CA can fund its.own military once we no longer need to send charity to all the red states with dirt for an economy. Actually, our police forces in the state routinely spend more money than entire foreign militaries. I'm sure with a couple trade deals and strategic defense pacts that California can easily become it's own country.
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California's food industry relies heavily on water from out of state, if those rivers dried up because flow got restricted to a trickle, it would be bad for their industry. None of this would happen without violent conflict though. Remember when the north burned the south to the ground? That is our historical precedent for how to respond to secession.
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I could see Oregon and Washington State throwing in with Cali, giving all of them a direct line to nice fresh Canadian Rocky BC Springs because we up here in Canada would be an instant ally of any states that broke off.
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You cannot get water from southern Oregon into California by any practical manner. Same as the person you replied to, the Central Valley and coastal regions are inaccessible except from the Sierra Nevada or Colorado River.
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Most of Oregon hates Portland these days, and I grew up in Portland. But I don't think secession would be up to a vote, it would be decided by violence like it always has been. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be successful, but I think Portland would still be burned to the ground.
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That's always been the case that the rural backwater hillbilly sister-fucking areas hate the cities. The same is true in California. But it doesn't matter because there are more people in the cities so they have more power so the yokels can't do shit.
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Much of the agricultural land would be fine. However the population centers in SoCal would have to make drastic cuts without the Colorado River.
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California is at the forefront of water conservation recycling in the US, and supports energy self sufficiency. The water issue is a problem, but not nearly as big as you might think. The state and water districts regularly fund new technologies and invest in storage. It would suck for a while, but in the long run, freedom from federal system might actually speed up changes that need to be made anyway.
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We could do without almonds and wine. The US has more than enough soybeans and corn and wheat and potatoes go around. Nobody is going to starve without California's agriculture.
Why are you growing water intensive almonds in what should be a desert anyway?
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Most vegetables and fruit not imported from Mexico are grown in California. Enjoy your scurvy.
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That's the problem .... if you are damned if you stay and damned if you leave .... everyone starts weighing the options of either situation
The choices for staying become ... stay and beholden to federal government that ties your hands, manipulates your economy and uses you for their benefit while never allowing you to do what your people want for themselves
or ... secede and fight a political, economic and possibly even a military conflict to decide your own future
either options is terrible in the long run (if things continue as they are) but staying means things stay indefinitely terrible while seceding gives a higher chance of political autonomy.
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If you're going that far, why wouldn't you want the other states? Just take over the whole government instead of trying to secede.
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For one, because the way that the government is set up means that you would need the cooperation of at least 26 states to ensure control of the legislative and executive branches, and even then, the Supreme Court justices are lifetime appointments, so you'd have to wait a long time to get the judicial branch on board. So you'd have to wage a war of conquest to secure the entire country. For another, much of the country is a burden on California's economy. They're the 5th or 6th largest economy in the world on their own, and many of the states are dependent on their tax money and produce.
I think if you're seriously talking about seceding, the most practical/logical plan would be a coalition of like-minded states seceding to form their own nation or EU style group of nation-states. The most likely to consider it would probably be the west coast and the northern end of the east coast (New England specifically), which would be a logistical nightmare for everyone involved - both for the US having hostile nations on all sides as well as any seceding states trying to trade across a hostile country between them. Though aid from friendly countries would be easily available, as both coasts border Canada (and Mexico on the west) and have plenty of infrastructure for trade internationally.
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wage a war of conquest to secure the entire country
There's not a large difference between that and a war for secession. Either way it's violence.
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One is holding ground that you already own vs. taking ground by force. From a military standpoint, there's a massive difference.
Not that I disagree that it's violence either way, mind you. It's just a different scale and situation.
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Civil war it is.
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Seems like it would be easier to untangle from the U.S. military if the California populace had access to... something... maybe something that throws metal really fast? Idk
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The single biggest stumbling block for any state to leave the union for any reason is the military. Most of the other problems can be resolved within the borders of the state, but the disposition of existing and theoretical new military hardware, personnel, and bases will always be a sticking point even assuming the federal government and the other states are willing to let them leave.
I mean it's California. At that point just get a few neighboring states on board, take all the military hardware and shit and be like "Wanna go to war over it?".
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Leaving the union? Yep you guessed it, unconstitutional. Secession would absolutely cause a war
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Yeah, if things were so bad that you were considering secession you might as well cut to the chase and just try to overthrow the US government because they would absolutely go after you hard
P.s. for any government officials who read the above comment, I'm not advocating for overthrow of your stupid little clubhouse, I'm pointing out why secession is a bad idea. Also, quit wasting my tax dollars looking at stupid shit.
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Would you rather be complicit with fascism or fight for something better?
Also, you're overlooking how much CA funds the rest of the nation. Flyover states do not function without funding from states like CA and TX. Take the west coast from the rest of the US and all that's left struggles to qualify as third world lmfao
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and balkanization of the states begins.
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So? It's probably worth it at this point. I'd enlist.
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Republicans would absolutely love it if the most populous state that consistently sends huge numbers of Democratic representatives to DC was out of the picture. You think Democrats can’t do shit now, see what happens when you lose 40+ democrats from the House.
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Won't matter to me. We'll leave to US to the Republicans.
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Yeah, I’m not cool with leaving my friends and family to just die because they don’t live in CA.
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That wouldn't be happening because they don't live in CA, it would happen because of Trump who exists in this role whether CA leaves the union or not.
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Do more democratic Senators and Representatives do anything or not? Because 6 months ago it was vote blue no matter who, now suddenly it doesn’t matter if we jettison 2 Democratic senators and 40+ Democratic reps as long as you get yours.
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The "vote blue no matter who" people were just "blue MAGA" folks trying to justify their support of genocide and those senators and reps along with the DNC leadership are now happily sitting on their asses while Trump's power goes unchecked, so who cares whether they keep their titles? It's not as if they're actually using their positions to fight back. They're just acting as controlled opposition.
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I had to escape the vile south to get away from violent racist monsters.
Shit happens.
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Tell them to move.
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Yarvin’s technobrocratic dystopia will have a bunch of these little states run by CEOs, and you wouldn’t have any voice in how it’s run, but you would be free to leave. Is that what you want?
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“Sell your home and leave your jobs and maybe it’ll work out” doesn’t fly as well as you think.
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I did.
I'm brown and fled the south as soon as I could.
Best decision I ever made.
Fucking worthless inbred filth need a wall to contain their damage, let them deal with each other.
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Something something taxation.... something something representation... help me out here americans
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Constitution? What constitution ?
What’s good for the goose…
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They could implement this by just not charging the duties at the ports in California and see who blinks first.
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Do they have control over that? I assumed that was handled by feds
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Federal and local government are likely both involved. With the doge cuts, who knows how many boots they actually have on the ground for this these days?
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The article states California is negotiating with other countries to exclude California from those countries' retaliatory tarrifs on US goods.
There's nothing the federal government can do about that.
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That's not actually true, there are things the federal government can do. First it's a grey area legally. The constitution says trade deals (and trade outside the borders of any one state) is the domain of the federal government.
The argument in this case would be "Is this a trade deal?". It certainly sounds like a deal, and it involves trade, but the key technicality would be if California is giving anything in return. Are they promising anything in exchange for no or reduced tariffs or are they just asking with the promise of nothing in return? If they're not promising anything there's a pretty good chance they could win the argument that this isn't a trade deal and therefore the federal government has no legal basis to intervene (although it's worth pointing out that the current administration hasn't particularly let legality influence their actions).
On the other hand if California is promising something in return there's a decent chance the federal government could successfully argue that that meets the definition of a trade deal and is therefore prohibited. This also raises the question of why another country would agree to remove tariffs from California if they aren't promising anything in return. The only answer I can come up with is to figuratively (and maybe literally at the same time) give the middle finger to Trump.
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On the other hand if...
... the federal government can prove ...
California is promising...
Of anyone in government was good at proving backhanded deals without exposing their own, we'd be in a very different place right now.
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If the union doesn't provide any benefits and only costs money and prevents your state from functioning as well as it could and the union only makes solutions harder to solve ...... why stay in the union?
States stay together because of mutual benefit, not because of a document or promises.
And you could force a state to stay in a union by force but the cost of doing that far outweighs the benefits of a peaceful union.
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Don't forget they're Democrats.
When the courts rule against them they'll just meekly comply.
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Is your state governor doing anything to oppose Trump?
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If memory serves right the person you are responding to is probably British. Or at the very least I don't think they are American, so don't take much of what they have to say particularly seriously.
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If they are british I hope that they are paying attention and doing what she can to keep the UK from following in our foot steps even farther.
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See my other response to peregrin5 but in addition you're assuming rational actors all around. Actual reality is far more messy with many of those involved making decisions based more on feelings than any in depth reasoning. States stay together because there's no obvious alternative. There's no mechanism for a state to leave the union and doing so requires solving many problems that have no obvious answers.
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The Trump administration has demonstrated that the constitution doesn't really matter. Why keep pretending like this is some sort of sacred immutable text? The spell has been lifted.
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Just because Trump and his goons are ignoring it doesn't mean his cronies in congress and the supreme court won't still use it to attack anyone they want to.
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But without boots on the ground, enforcement won't happen. If Trump mobilized military on his own nation, he will well and truly enter the final find out phase of his life. The social contract is wearing thin.
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Wouldn't take the military, he can call on federal marshals, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and probably even some of the local police would be willing to become his dogs. He could also in theory deploy one states national guard into a different state although that's a little shakier legal ground. That's assuming of course that the local officials would refuse to appear in court or a congressional summons voluntarily. There's also other ways of exerting pressure like refusing to issue federal funds (although that's far less effective against Democrat states since they contribute more federal funds than they receive, particularly California).
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National Guard is military. Using federal law enforcement might be on the table but they're woefully underequipped to deal with California as a whole.
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yes, without any shared understanding around whether we enforce all laws or just some, law books are just reems of scratchy toilet paper. So are everyones holy books, and any international agreements we have.
Trump doesnt care about laws and law enforcement has openly hated the public for a long time. Their oaths to serve the law are a vanity that they jettison whenever its convenient.
And Biden/Harris violating god knows how many genocide and arms laws for zionist $ and then losing the election and support across every voting demographic didnt help matters. I wish I could go back in time to the day Obama picked Biden as his running mate and shake Obama until he picks someone else.
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It looks like they're just going to lobby trading partners to please direct (actual) retaliatory sanctions towards products from red states, not their state. In general, I like that idea. But maybe now any excemptions for blue state products should come with a promise to actually fight the incipient fascist government...
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Let the feds try to enforce it then. Texas immigration officers basically kicked the feds out when they started doing federally illegal shit, the federal government is barely held together these days. Force them to do something about it. If the flow of money between California and the US stops, California is the big winner so they have all the leverage in the world.
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They did it during the pandemic, the union is quite literally dissolving before our very eyes.
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338 comments