EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A key component of Mexico avoiding threatened Feb. 1 Trump administration tariffs on exports to the United States is that country’s ability to take back more deported migrants.
Colombia balked on repatriation flights last weekend and the administration immediately announced the 25% punitive levy before the South American country offered a compromise.
Juarez officials said a new tent complex meant as a refuge for up to 2,500 is ready to come online in the next few days. Border Report video taken on Wednesday shows cots and bunk beds already being placed inside the tents. Portable toilets are in place and the tents have electricity.
Both the mayor of Juarez as well as the president of Mexico expressed optimism the Trump deadline – which could hurt both countries’ economies – will come and go without incident.
“February 1st? We don’t believe it will happen,” President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said Wednesday in a news conference broadcast on YouTube. “There are conversations, there is dialogue. We don’t believe there will be (an imposition) of tariffs. But we also are prepared” if they happen.
Speaking in El Paso, Juarez Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar said municipal, state and federal governments in Juarez are collaborating to have the so-called migrant reception center ready soon.
“When the deportations come, even if its minors – accompanied or not – we will be involved. Not just city government but also the state,” he said. “I think everything will be well. Juarez and El Paso have lived through many migrant crises and we had never seen such (federal) support like we are seeing now.”
The Mexican government is renting the tents already up near the Juarez soccer stadium, providing food, buses and cots primarily for Mexicans removed from the U.S. in coming days, weeks and months.
Perez Cuellar said the city would be providing security and other support.
“The Civil Protection Office will be inspecting (the tents). Once that is ready, we can begin,” he said, adding he is confident Trump won’t penalize Mexico as threatened. “Things are going good despite the hardline discourse. There is so much interdependence between our two economies that it’s almost impossible to blow that up.”
Mexico has become the U.S. principal trading partner and many jobs in El Paso and Juarez depend on international trade. The U.S.-run assembly plants in Juarez provide more than 300,000 jobs in that city, while the the moving, warehousing and distribution of components assembled in Juarez to the interior of the U.S. also bring thousands of jobs to El Paso.
“The motivation for the tariffs was illegal immigration. That is now down to a trickle,” said Tanny Berg, founding member of El Paso’s Central Business Association. “Mexico is ready to receive the Mexicans they (the Trump administration) want to send back. I’m hopeful that response will defer the necessity of imposing tariffs. Tariffs don’t work for anybody.”
Tariffs on Mexico would bring “unthinkable” consequences for both local economies and harm American consumers, he said.
“Those tariffs eventually get passed down to the consumer. When we have 10 or 15 or 20 or 50 percent tariffs on any country in the world, guess who ends up paying it? We do. Our inflation goes through the roof,” Berg said. “Tariffs don’t work for local economies; they don’t work for national economies. There are ways to work out our differences without having an economic impact.”
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