EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Millions of dollars in merchandise and thousands of El Paso and Juarez, Mexico, residents cross the border every day.
That’s been going on for decades and illustrates how much the two cities and the two nations depend on each other. That’s why Juarez leaders are confident binational commercial, cultural and family ties will go on regardless of who the next American president is.
“The border and all of Mexico have dealt with Democrat and Republican presidents, including Donald Trump, and there was a good relationship with Mexico,” Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar said on the eve of a presidential election in the United States. “The level of interdependence between the two countries is so large that it is practically impossible (to break).”
Mexican border leaders aren’t too worried about Vice President Kamala Harris becoming president. They see her continuing policies Mexico has lived with for the past four years with Joe Biden.
But they fear a Trump presidency will bring challenges.
Alejandro Sandoval Murillo, regional president of the Institute of Mexican Finance Executives, said Trump’s rhetoric on illegal immigration and drug trafficking shook Mexican markets when he was elected to office in 2016.
Threats of tariffs on Mexico in 2019 if it didn’t crack down on the northward transit of migrants brought further economic instability. But things got sorted out and, in the end, “things weren’t too bad,” Sandoval said.
This time around, Trump is threatening mass deportations of undocumented migrants, many of whom likely would be expelled to Mexico.
“It would be very serious if he does deport 20 million migrants to Mexico. We don’t have the infrastructure to assimilate that. Just think: a million migrants – half a million migrants – are sent to Juarez. How do we manage that?” Sandoval said.
He recalled how Juarez officials scrambled to provide services and maintain order when up to 30,000 migrants headed north were “stuck” in Juarez last year.
“If we see higher numbers, things will be complicated,” he said.
The Juarez business community is also worried about Trump trying to impose tariffs on Mexico if it doesn’t curtail illegal immigration, curb illegal exports of fentanyl and other drugs to the U.S. or continues to invite Chinese investment.
“Trump may not comprehend how tariffs or changes to the USMCA will affect his own economy. Here on the border, it will affect the binational export industry, the maquiladoras,” Sandoval said. “It could affect operations in Juarez, Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo,” he said.
He added extreme border security demands from Trump might not be realistic in a country that is struggling to keep its own citizens safe.
“We don’t have the capacity to respond. Mexican policies have been insufficient to solve the public safety challenge: murders and drug activity continue,” Sandoval said. “If the United States tells us to solve a share problem – because the demand for drugs comes from the U.S. – we are not coordinating efforts in partnership.”
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