Out with TPP—where does that leave Pacific Rim trade?

On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact that involved 12 Pacific Rim countries to lower or eliminate tariffs and promote exports. He has also vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada to remove trade barriers.

Many California business interests say scrapping the TPP could hurt Silicon Valley as well as the Central Valley by losing out on growing their businesses. Trade advocates have also argued that trade-related jobs pay 15 percent to 18 percent higher wages than workers whose companies only sell domestically. Trump also brings uncertainty for tens of thousands of workers in California’s shipping industry. For example, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach make up the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere and handles 30 to 40 percent of containers that flow into the country.

But other Californians welcomed the President’s tougher stance against U.S. trading partners, and say his trade policies will act as a better buffer for  American workers against competition from low-wage countries like Vietnam and Malaysia.

Trump also pledged to penalize American businesses that move jobs overseas by imposing a 35 percent tax on products they sell back in the U.S.—a move that supporters say will keep or bring back jobs. That could benefit California workers and also state revenues, which depend in part on income taxes.

In late January, Trump floated a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports to finance a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but later clarified that it was just one option amid uproar that American companies and consumers would bear the cost.