California residents worried about potential impact of tariffs on employment, economy

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

Los Angeles is grappling with rising costs and delays in its wildfire recovery process, as tariffs on construction materials imposed during the Trump administration compound the challenges.

The devastating wildfires recently destroyed over 17,000 homes and businesses, leaving communities urgently pushing forward with reconstruction.

The Trump administration has recently rolled out new tariffs on a wide range of construction materials, including steel and aluminum, from the main trading partners of the United States, such as Canada, Mexico, and China. This has significantly driven up costs, further complicating the recovery efforts

"As the city and county of Los Angeles move aggressively to rebuild the wildfire areas in Malibu, Pacific Palisades, and up in Altadena, to build those houses, we need softwood lumber, aluminum, and steel from Canada," said Gene Soroka, executive director of Port of Los Angeles.

While the tariffs aim to boost domestic production, the transition will take time. In the interim, the shortage of materials is creating ripple effects across the construction sector.

"We are still handling a lot of imported steel, despite the tariffs because there's not enough American manufacturing of steel right now. So, one of the unintended consequences that this has done the wrong way is you don't have enough steel. That impacts construction, that impacts economic growth across the board," said Weston Labar, chief strategy office of Waterfront Logistics.

According to the Associated General Contractors of America, housing costs could skyrocket by almost 50 percent, widening the gap between insurance payouts and actual rebuilding expenses. It may force many homeowners to delay or even abandon their reconstruction plans, prolonging the housing shortage in Los Angeles.

Tariffs are also driving up prices for other products, impacting recovery efforts.

"We need appliances from Mexico, furniture from China, and all of those prices are going up, whether anticipatory, or real as these imports are coming across our port complex. So, we've got to have some pretty detailed discussions about this because families who want to rebuild, businesses who want to get back into the office are going to be impacted by these tariffs one way or another," said Soroka.

As Los Angeles strives to recover, the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs presents a formidable obstacle.

Tariffs add strain to Los Angeles wildfire recovery efforts