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/espressocycle 1d ago

California has more military installations assigned nuclear-warfare responsibilities than any other state and ranks fourth in the number of nuclear warheads stockpiled.

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u/ArkitekZero 1d ago

Well that's good because I mistakenly thought the missiles were all in flyover states.

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u/espressocycle 1d ago

I assumed so as well. Also until recently I had completely forgotten that France maintains a sizable nuclear arsenal.

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u/cyanescens_burn 1d ago

We also have Livermore National nuclear labs, some top tech universities, and also a bunch of the aerospace industry in Silicon Valley.

I’m fairly convinced California would not only do fine on its own, but thrive. It would take some time to reorganize trading partners, but all in all would fair better than many other states on its own.

In reality though, the military issue would be messy. Some that are stationed here might want to stay, seeing California as a better survival option than an increasingly isolationist US with a floundering and uncertain economic future. Others would see MAGAmerica as a shining beacon of whatever it is they think it’ll be.

Similar with left and right leaning citizens (we have a lot of republicans in the state, I see trump, qanon, and Gadsden flags when I go to the Central Valley and eastern side of the state, and counties do go red in elections). These folks own property, businesses, and have other ties here, would they just up and leave?

It might end up like a version of the India and Pakistan split, but by political party rather than religion/ethnicity, where people migrate to the place they want, then there’s unending tension between neighboring nations.

I honestly don’t see secession happening, but people are talking about the idea more than I’ve heard in the past 20 something years.

In any case, it’d be great if we didn’t have to keep subsidizing other states with our federal tax contributions, since the federal money we need keeps being threatened or cut off.

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u/espressocycle 1d ago

Full secession of any state is unlikely but there are a lot of partial steps to greater autonomy.