r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 20h ago

California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs

https://www.newsweek.com/california-newsom-trade-trump-tariffs-2055414
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u/Rickbox 19h ago

I suspect the other blue states are going to see how this plays out before making a move.

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u/CAL9k 19h ago

I could see Michigan following suit if California is successful. We are so tied to Canada in terms of energy and the automotive industry.

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u/LordKai121 19h ago

I think Minnesota would also follow suit quite expediently.

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u/FlyingSagittarius 19h ago

And Illinois.  There’s your economic powerhouses of the midwest right there.

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u/ragnarocknroll 18h ago

Just northern Illinois. Leave the Iowa wannabe part out. Watch the suburbs get back 40% of the money they pay in taxes instead of supporting those counties.

I always find it funny when the counties saying they want to leave Illinois make noise, because they would be in trouble without us.

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u/DOG_DICK__ 18h ago

Texas has a "robin hood" system for school funding, and my city sends SO much tax money to the state to distribute to other areas that fucking hate us.

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u/twiztedterry 17h ago

I'm not in Texas, but in Utah they give all sales tax and most property tax to the schools. It lets the hillbillies and fundamentalist mormons bitch about socialism while benefitting directly from it.

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u/VoxImperatoris 17h ago

Which they take and spend on football stadiums instead of books, because books are for libruls.

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u/nah-42 17h ago

rural Illinois is more like southern Indiana than Iowa. That’s why the each-and-every-decade proposal of splitting illinois in half always has the map drawn as northern Indiana joining Chicagoland for the new Illinois while southern Illinois joins the rest of Indiana as the new Hoosier state.

Fuck Iowa.

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u/Cyclonitron Minnesota 17h ago

Fuck Iowa.

Agreed. All my homies hate Iowa.

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u/PraiseBeToScience 16h ago

It's almost like what the city could be if the suburbs didn't come in existence specifically to erode its tax base while benefitting from its existence.

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u/AvrgSam Minnesota 19h ago

Absolutely, and we’re a solid economic cornerstone of the Midwest.

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u/campingcritters 18h ago

I'm moving there this summer from Texas. I can't wait!

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u/Adamclane99 18h ago

It's amazing!

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u/BellacosePlayer South Dakota 16h ago

minnesota would probably split, with the rural western half breaking off

which isn't necessarily a downside from your perspective

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u/LordKai121 16h ago

I'll be honest, I know very little about MN, just have a bunch of family and friends there (they have the largest Hmong population). However just from what I hear and have visited, MN sounds very similar to where I live in Central Cali.

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u/BellacosePlayer South Dakota 16h ago

I'm right on the SD/MN border and much of Western MN is not much different than Eastern SD/ND. They even had some politicians saber rattle about cutting free and joining SD a few years ago

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u/DarthTechnicus Wisconsin 16h ago

I have hope WI would, but it wouldn't come from the state legislature. It would have to come from the Governor which would be challenged in court and makes Tuesday's State Supreme Court victory matter even more. Granted, if we had lost the shifting of the balance would only happen August 1st, but shit, we're good til 2028 at least now.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 15h ago edited 15h ago

MN would certainly try, but tragically our state House is no longer in pure DFL majority control, there's a 50:50 split between DFL and GOP, so our ability to do things that actually help people like we've been doing for the last few years is stunted.

Hopefully the DFL has a great midterm in 2026 and we can scrap sharing power with the morally and literally bankrupt MN GOP.

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u/AncefAbuser 19h ago

Most of the states that border Canada and an Ocean would break off. The USA would be decimated.

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u/Kup123 18h ago

At this point I want my country to collapse so I can get absorbed in to Canada.

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u/Zjarrr 18h ago

I don't want to burden Canada with our morons, but I'd be cool with a nation that's a combination of Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin that's allied with Canada

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u/Kup123 18h ago

I think our idiots and water is a fare trade for their healthcare.

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u/Zjarrr 18h ago

What do you mean water? They have a TON of fresh water

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u/MBCnerdcore 18h ago

Nah, the real USA is the parts that don't stay with Trump

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u/gopher_space 13h ago

Cascadia has been an idea since the 60's. Washington State has a lot more in common with B.C. and California than it does the rest of the country.

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u/Complete-Arm6658 18h ago

I doubt Idaho, MT, or ND would though.

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u/PenImpossible874 New York 10h ago

I hope this happens

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u/lost-picking-flowers 18h ago

Could see the entire northeast jumping on the wagon tbh. Any state that has a governor who is not completely brainwashed or held hostage by a brainwashed state legislature. But I could see the sheer unpopularity of these tariffs even compelling red states to break with dear leader.

I remember during the early part of the pandemic when things got really bad for the first time in the northeast corridor the Trump admin deliberately withheld PPE from the states and Maryland had to bypass his admin and negotiate directly with South Korea for PPE. I feel like this admin has just been a direct continuation of the worst and most maliciously chaotic periods during the pandemic, same energy for sure.

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u/DOG_DICK__ 18h ago

Much of the North Country and Western New York are tied into Canada. Culturally and economically. I grew up there so my closest major city was always Montreal.

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u/imisstheyoop 18h ago

Yeah, people are freaking out about it here and the layoffs have already began.

I believe both California and Michigan are #1/#2 in unemployment for states currently, so will only get worse.

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u/jeexbit 18h ago

Washington won't be far behind...

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u/QuarkGuy I voted 18h ago

I know PA wouldn’t count as a “blue” state but I hope our governor gets in on it too

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u/WordleFan88 17h ago

And passage. Those great lakes have Togo though Canada to get to sea, correct?

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u/Noob_Al3rt 14h ago

NYC/NJ could join with CA as well

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u/DonaldsMushroom 9h ago

this sounds like the opening sequence to a Netflix Ameripocalypse.

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u/Piccolo60000 17h ago

Oh no you don’t, Michigan. You voted for this clown, so you’re staying put.

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u/PringlesDuckFace 16h ago

How would this actually work though? Michigan buys the goods, then it can just turn around and sell to another state. It would require some state being able to sign an agreement with a foreign nation that prevents interstate commerce. I have to imagine that's hugely open to legal challenges.

If the goal is just to have foreign countries lower tariffs on things like avocados or whatever, then I don't know what California could offer in return since it doesn't control US tariffs.

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u/oldnjgal 19h ago

New Jersey gets to keep all the pills.

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u/Puffycatkibble 19h ago

Including the Jersey Shore cast? Deal!

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u/DreamsAndSchemes New Jersey 19h ago

nah NY can have them

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u/Eightinchnails 16h ago

My first thought too. We have pills and Indian food. We good. 

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u/LaplaceOperator Oregon 19h ago

And Snooki.

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u/rbrt115 18h ago

Illinois Governor Pritzker just came back from Mexico City with a trade deal. Very curious to see how this works. Will Trump retaliate with an export tax?

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u/PatReady 19h ago

Maine has entered the chat.

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u/LoweringPass 19h ago

Y'all are free to join the EU over here, we've got all the free trade anyone could ever want.

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u/Adept_Artichoke7824 19h ago

What’ll be interesting is who gets pulled in either direction. Adjacent states will probably follow suit bc they are also dependent on CA’s ports. IL was the first to make its own agreement with Mexico. Socal is so intrinsically tied to Mexico that they will probably do something similar.

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u/Opheliagonemad 19h ago

Yeah, we’re much smaller here in WA (as is Oregon) so I could believe that we’re waiting to see how California does before joining in them.

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u/foco_runner South Dakota 16h ago

I thought I had heard Illinois doing something similar?

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u/FrostGiant_1 18h ago

Might be better if they all moved at the same time.

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u/Tropicaldaze1950 15h ago

Maybe winter isn't so bad. Don't want to be stuck in the idiocracy of Florida.

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u/PadreSJ 13h ago

The easiest block would be Washington, Oregon and California.

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u/Ddit_who_cant_quit 7h ago

I'm currently wondering if there's a way that Oregon, Washington and (possibly, if they want) Nevada could benefit from/contribute to this.