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Abdullah Snobar remembers the mood at the U.S. consulate in Toronto on election night going from confidence to shock.

Early in the evening, everyone was certain Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would handily beat Donald Trump, said Snobar, the executive director of DMZ, Ryerson University’s technology startup incubator in Toronto. As the hours went by and the map of electoral districts went redder and redder, he started to grapple with what a Trump victory would mean for his industry.

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“When he first announced, it was a joke. When he got as far as he did, it became a bigger joke. Then it started to feel a bit more serious,” he said. “But nobody actually expected this to happen.”

But it did, and Trump’s policies — if he’s serious about them — will have a serious impact on the global economy in general and the tech industry in particular.

Snobar said 2017 will be a time to welcome American talent interested in coming north of the border for a change, while remembering there is a whole world out there to trade with should the U.S. implement protectionist policies.