r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 1d 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/Bruce-7891 1d ago

I'd love this but it sounds illegal as F. A tariff is a tax and a state can't independently decide it's not going to participate in federal taxes.

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u/VelvetFedoraSniffer 1d ago

You don't have to break federal law..

Make them pay the tariff, but create an equal portion of incentive via the powers of the state - i.e. discounts in other items in the supply chain

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u/Bruce-7891 1d ago

There isn't enough money just floating around to do that though. If a shipment of cars or cargo containers arrives in the port of Long Beach from Asia, how are you going to compensate the importer 25% of the entire value of those things every time that happens? That's gotta be $10s of millions a month.

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u/ExtremeModerate2024 1d ago edited 1d ago

you can give them a free lot to put the cars on it and a free corporate office that are exempt from property taxes and rent. you can give them tax breaks or even rebates. california would in effect be spending tax revenue to save tax revenues with direct rebates. but there are others to do it too.

california would have this right to offer rebates and incentitives to negate tariffs. they just can't impose tariffs themselves.

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u/Neve4ever 18h ago

But why subsidize foreign goods instead of domestic ones? Using tax dollars to lower the prices of imports isn't the brightest move.