SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — The daily flow of semi trucks into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry seems to be nonstop with almost every rig carrying products grown or assembled south of the border.
It’s $60 billion worth of merchandise every year, said Alejandra Mier y Teran, executive director of the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce.
“A lot of jobs are obviously tagged to those $60 billion in both countries,” she said.
Mier y Teran fears the 25% tariffs President Donald Trump wants to impose on products from Mexico and Canada would have a negative impact on jobs and the economy in the San Diego-Tijuana region.
Trump is using the threat of tariffs to force Mexico and Canada to do more to curtail unlawful immigration and the flow of drugs, especially fentanyl, into the United States.
Even though the tariffs have been put on hold until early next month, Mier y Teran remains concerned.
“Eighty percent of our workforce are international trade related jobs,” she said. “Certainly, reductions in the work force of existing international trade operations would be felt, we’ll have closures possibly — all of us as consumers will pay higher prices on really key products like vegetables, which are going to be more expensive.”
While tariffs on Mexico and Canada have been postponed, those on China have not.
They went into effect this month.
Mier y Teran says the tariffs on Chinese products are already affecting trade. “We have manufacturers that use a certain amount of Chinese components, and that is already having an impact on our cross-border area.”
Mier y Teran hopes Trump will eventually forget about the tariffs.
“We have a vibrant cross-border economy, we want to keep it that way, we want to grow it, why? Because people depend on their jobs and the quality of life, we don’t want to lose that.”
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