In the past 14 months, the Trump administration and California have had an adversarial relationship. California sued the Trump administration 15 times in the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term and threatened to withhold tax revenue. At the same time, the Trump administration has withheld federal disaster relief after the Palisade Fires; threatened mass ICE deployment in major cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco; and deployed the National Guard against protesters in Los Angeles. 

In response to the Trump administration’s actions, a fringe movement called Calexit has gained some political capital. Calexit proposes California secede from the United States to form an independent state, separate from the United States.

As an independent state, California would theoretically be the world’s fourth-largest economy, with a gross domestic product (GDP) totaling $4.1 trillion in 2025 — 14% of the total U.S. GDP. 

“California’s famous for Hollywood. The biggest export of the U.S. is culture,” Vikas Gobburi ’27 said. “It’s a lot of soft power. Go anywhere else in the world — they’re always playing American music.” 

Marcus Evans and Louis Marinelli originally founded Calexit in 2015 under the name Yes California. In 2026, Calexit brought on JJ Ames — a former professor of political science and former chamber of commerce and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) speechwriter — as political director. 

Ames is vocal in his support for Calexit and skepticism about the United States’s future. “I think it’s incorrect to say the American experiment has failed,” Ames said in an interview with Evans published on Calexit’s youtube. “But, it’s correct to say the American experiment is over.” 

Ames continued, emphasizing the necessity of speed in the independence process. “The more time we spend trying to fix something that is irretrievably broken,” he said, “the less time we have to maneuver ourselves into whatever the next chapter is.”

When The Urban Legend spoke to Evans last year, he was proposing an initiative on the California ballot to initiate the secession process. Calexit is now trying to find sponsors for a Senate bill to begin a formal, nonbinding investigation into secession, the beginning of their 12-point plan. 

The plan includes creating a blue-ribbon committee that would investigate the various legal issues independence would create, including who would own federal property and conduct international relations. 

With the knowledge that will be gained from this commission, Calexit claims that California could survive and thrive separately from the United States. It believes this committee and the hearings it conducts will be enough to draw national media attention, giving the organization the momentum they need to begin the secession process. 

“Technically, one-fifth of the California government [in signing on] only said they thought it was a good idea in a non-legally-binding manner that doesn’t support anything,” Evans said in an interview with The Urban Legend. “The headline is not going to be that. It’s going to be [about] the California government investigating independence.”

Calexit bases their theory on a precedent established by Texas v. White. In this 1896 case,  the U.S. Supreme Court case in Texas ruled on the constitutionality of Texas’ secession from the United States, saying it would be unconstitutional because Texas did not obtain consent from a majority of the states. Calexit’s strategy hinges on this idea, which it has taken to mean a simple majority in Congress and the Senate. 

California has done deals with countries independent from the United States. On May 6, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom bought $1 billion worth of masks directly from Build Your Dreams, a Chinese car manufacturer. Some believe these deals are evidence of California’s potential as an independent state. 

“[California] governors sign trade deals and treaties in foreign countries, which only a foreign [state] can do,” Evans said in an interview with The Urban Legend. “We already operate like a foreign country.” 

The deals Evans is referencing are called memorandums of understanding (MOUs), and are nonbinding agreements California establishes with other countries around environmental and economic goals. They are not equivalent to the kind of trade deals the federal government makes.

Not all are convinced California is as unified as Calexit claims. “[What] creates a country is a story about that place, why it exists and who lives there,” California history teacher Ruthann Betkey said. “I think the story of California is fascinating. I think it’s still developing, and I don’t think it has any type of unity behind it.”

At the moment, California lacks a foreign policy plan and a military apparatus that can protect the state from foreign powers. California has more than 30 active major defense installments with more than 160,000 troops stationed at them. These troops are loyal to the United States at large, rather than the state of California. It is unclear what would happen to the bases and their personnel if California were to secede, as secession is legally uncharted territory.

Calexit claims to have widespread public support for their plan amongst Californians, noting a poll of an unspecified number of people showing 51% of Californians either strongly support or do not oppose Californian sovereignty. The Urban Legend was not able to independently verify the precision of the poll. 

“Given a safe, legal process, I would vote yes,” Gobburi said. “We’d lose out on … relations that the U.S. has, [but] I also don’t think the world would be too unhappy about an independent California.” 

California leaving the union would upend the political balance of the United States for years to come, losing the Democratic Party 53 electoral votes and more than 40 Democratic representatives. 

“I understand where it’s coming from, but I think it’s ultimately a selfish thing to want to do,” Charlotte Quigley ’26 said. “The idea of secession in that way is very … individualistic. I think it would be cruel to… leave the rest of the country out to dry.” 

California is a donor state, meaning it gives more in federal funding than it receives. In 2025, California gave around $7 billion more than it received from the federal government. “We pay a lot of taxes to the federal government,” Ezra Lee ’26 said. “So, if California leaves the picture, suddenly that puts a lot of other states in financial danger.”

Despite this, Evans remains convinced of his position. “We don’t need to develop any further. We don’t need to say anything more,” he said. “We used to say it would probably happen. Now we’re of the opinion that if our facts got out in the media, Calexit would happen the next day.”