Long Beach, a coastal city in the U.S. State of California, is bracing for challenges as its port economy will be affected by the series of executive orders signed and tariffs announced by President Donald Trump. An economic impact study has shown that one in five jobs in this city is related directly or indirectly to trade at its port.
"That's a lot of jobs for the city of Long Beach, and the study goes on and talks about, if I remember correctly, in southern California 575,000 jobs, in the state of California 700,000 some odd jobs are related to business at the port of Long Beach," said Bonnie Lowenthal, president of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners, at a local Chinese New Year celebration event on Saturday.
The latest flurry of tariffs announced by Trump aims to revive domestic manufacturing, but experts say it could take time to build capacity, especially for metals like steel and aluminum.
"At the minimum, it will be three to five years, if not longer for large industrial projects to materialize it. I think it's much easier for advanced manufacturing to be able to deploy right away within a couple of years' time, but under no way or form or shape, one can imagine that one will start to see the manufacturing boom in six months. It will not happen. It cannot happen," said Nick Vyas, founder and executive director of the USC Randall R. Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute. Meanwhile, concerns are mounting that tariffs could bring much uncertainty to key industries, such as construction and auto-manufacturing, which rely on these raw materials.
"When you are running an industry where average car production, the parts, the subsystems, travels cross-border three and a half to four times before it actually gets assembled, and you introduce this kind of friction between cross-border supply chain, it creates a tremendous anxiety, tremendous inefficiency and tremendous friction. All of this adds up to less productive proposition, higher cost, lower margin, and that makes the entire industry nervous, and rightfully so," Vyas added.
Mary Barton, treasurer of the Long Beach-Qingdao Association, a non-profit organization established in 1985 to foster friendship and exchanges between Long Beach and China's coastal port city Qingdao, said these shifts may be felt by many more businesses and their workers.
"Our friends in the business world are worried about whether or not their products will be successful on the market now. And if not, with these new higher prices, will they be forced to lay off people? What will the economic price be for these people to pay who had nothing to do with the disputes?" said Barton.
California residents worried about potential impact of tariffs on employment, economy
California residents worried about potential impact of tariffs on employment, economy
China will take further steps to expand high-standard opening-up and create a new landscape of win-win cooperation in 2026, which marks the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said in a recent interview with China Media Group.
Wang said opening up and cooperation for mutual benefit are integral to Chinese modernization. This year, China will actively expand voluntary opening up.
The country will steadily open up such areas as value-added telecommunications, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, while accelerating comprehensive pilot and demonstration programs for expanded opening-up in the services sector, he noted.
"We will expand the scope and regions of unilateral opening-up and ensure the implementation of zero-tariff treatment on 100 percent of tariff lines for all African countries that have diplomatic relations with China. We will vigorously promote the effective implementation of policies for special customs operations of the Hainan Free Trade Port, further enhance the level of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, optimize the regional layout and coverage of pilot free trade zones, and support these zones in carrying out more robust institutional opening-up trials in areas such as market access, environmental standards and government procurement, so as to better leverage their role as comprehensive pilot platforms for reform and opening-up," said Wang.
Wang said China will promote the orderly planning of cross-border industrial and supply chains.
Efforts will be made to deepen economic and trade cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, enhance integration and connectivity across production and supply chains, and encourage cooperation in areas including green development, the digital economy, green minerals, new infrastructure and new energy so as to help build global production and supply chain partnerships that are equal, inclusive and constructive, he noted.
"We will give play to the platform role of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, expand overseas marketing networks and explore international markets through outward investment, achieve mutual promotion between investment and trade, and advance the integrated development of trade and investment. We will also improve the overseas comprehensive service system and the national-level overseas comprehensive service platform," said the minister.
In addition, China will participate constructively in global economic governance, according to the minister.
In 2026, Wang said, China will pursue flexible and pragmatic approaches to negotiate trade and investment agreements with more willing countries and regions, while strengthening economic and trade cooperation under multilateral frameworks such as BRICS, G20 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to further promote mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.
China to expand high-standard opening-up to foster win-win cooperation: minister
