California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that his state will file a lawsuit challenging U.S. President Donald Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs that have set off a global trade war.
The suit will argue that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, or a 10 per cent tariff on all imports, is unlawful. The act enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to foreign threats.
California’s move follows rapidly changing tariff plans by the Trump administration. It is the first state to take legal action over the tariffs, which have been previously legally challenged in suits filed by law firms representing business owners and civil liberties organizations.
If anyone could it’s the 5th(?) largest economy on the planet and the spot that make up most of our west coast.
Kind of makes me wonder, since by and large the ‘blue’ states pay into the fed more than they get and ‘red’ states are net leeches, how viable would it be for there to be a concerted “fuck off we we just won’t play with you any more” to economically starve the rest of the states.
I read somewhere that the net payer / net payee numbers are pretty skewed by military bases - there are a lot more in red states, they go on the states’ balance sheets as income from the feds, and it’s not like the states have much of a choice in the matter. So economically starving some of those states might not be as cut and dry as it seems.
That being said, I’m all for giving it the ol’ college try. This experiment is over, we had a
goodrun, and now it’s time for a national divorce.