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/Axin_Saxon 1d ago

Headline is more than a little clickbait-y.

Basically the governor is asking nations not to tariff goods made in California. He is not able to circumvent American tariffs, but he can try to play the game of “if you don’t tariff our goods, but instead hit red state exports , then California and other blue states can get richer and while red states get poorer, shifting the balance of power back to democrats and get a democratic government back who can repeal these tariffs.”

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u/SharkSymphony 1d ago

It's not just the headline – this whole article is pure dreck. Shame on OP for passing along such a low-information source.

Here's the source people should be reading: Newsom's own press release.

Like you said, this is an attempt to get countries to exclude California export products from retaliation. Nothing can be done about import tariffs at the moment.

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u/UglyMcFugly 1d ago

You gotta read between the lines here. Shit like this is the first step... 

"To our international partners: As the fifth largest economy in the world, the Golden State will remain a steady, reliable partner for generations to come, no matter the turbulence coming out of Washington. California is not Washington, D.C."

He's making a statement to the world that California is a separate entity, talking about it's separate economy, and starting a direct dialog with foreign countries. This IS a big deal and I'm all for it.

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u/Great_Rhunder 1d ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a really big. This is an international message that the US is not actually united and has someone stepping way out of bounds of their normal authority. That isn't to say they arw doing the right or wrong thing, but its dissent like we haven't seen in our lifetimes. I have no idea what the ramifications could or would be.

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u/reckless_responsibly Wisconsin 1d ago

I don't know if I'd go quite so far as "dissent like we haven't seen in our lifetimes". Texas in particular has made a lot of independence adjacent noise during both Obama's and Biden's administrations.

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u/SharkSymphony 1d ago

The way I see it, the US has always been a collection of loud, more-or-less unruly states. The bigger ones get more attention than the smaller ones, but there's drama going all the way back to the Articles of Confederation. Threats of secession aren't even that uncommon.