EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The border has started to feel the pain of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Mexican imports.
Mexican businesses on Tuesday began factoring in the 25% levy as they filled out paperwork to send anything from car parts to fresh produce to El Paso ports of entry. They then began figuring out how to bill U.S. customers for the added expense.
“Businesses are in panic. They are totally scared of what is happening,” said Marcelo Vasquez, regional director of the Mexican Association of Importers and Exporters. “They had talked about (excluding) some products, but they put tariffs on everything, absolutely everything.”
The immediate losers because of the tariffs that went in to effect on Tuesday are border manufacturing plants under contract to deliver assembled components quickly to U.S. clients. Produce farmers also cannot sit and wait for the levies to go away because their product spoils.
But, eventually, every consumer in the U.S. will pay more for any good made with Mexican or Canadian parts taxed at the border, industry and local government leaders say.
