Mexico's president warns Trump's tariffs will worsen US inflation, kill jobs

Mexico’s president warns Trump’s tariffs will worsen US inflation, kill jobs

Posted by Admin November 26, 2024 Jobs

Mexico’s president responded Tuesday to President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on goods produced in her country with a warning that his plan would cause more inflation and hurt storied American automakers like General Motors and Ford.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo opened her morning news conference by reading aloud a letter she plans to send to Trump, questioning his vow to slap a 25% tariff on goods produced in Mexico if her government doesn’t stop the flow of migrants or fentanyl to the U.S. border.

She suggested Trump may not know that, over the past year, her country has taken “a holistic approach” to blocking the tens of thousands of people who cross Mexico to reach the U.S. southern border, or that U.S. Border Patrol migrant encounters have dropped more than 75% since last December as a result, she said.

She warned about the economic risk for both countries, and for the American companies that rely on their Mexico assembly plants to deliver low-cost goods to consumers.

“The response to one tariff will be another, until we put at risk companies that we share – yes, that we share,” she said, in what appeared to be a veiled threat to counter any Trump tariffs with ones of her own.

“For example, among the principal exporters from Mexico are General Motors, Stellantis and Ford Motor Co., which arrived in Mexico 80 years ago. Why put a tax on them that will put them at risk? It’s not acceptable,” she said. “And it would cause inflation and job losses for the United States and Mexico.”

Mexico’s “holistic approach” is a euphemism for the country’s crackdown on migration this year.

Since January, Mexico has been rounding up migrants headed for the U.S. border and sending them to the southern parts of Mexico over and over again – what experts have called a “carousel” approach to enforcement.

The country has kept up its enforcement, analysts say, in part because the Biden-Harris administration opened a humanitarian, legal pathway through its CBP One application for migrants to make appointments to present at the U.S. border, which Trump has threatened to end.

Trump has frequently used threats, including tariff threats, to extract concessions at the negotiating table as he tries to strike deals for the United States.

Sheinbaum “is probably going to have to give a bit because tariffs would crater Mexico’s economy,” said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for the nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America.

Roughly 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the United States.

Mexico is currently the United States’ largest trading partner, outpacing China. Trade between the U.S. and Mexico topped $855 billion annually in 2022, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Regarding fentanyl trafficking to the U.S., Sheinbaum said in her letter to Trump that Mexico views the United States’ drug problem as a public health issue that needs to be dealt with in the U.S. Mexico’s government has long struggled to control the powerful criminal organizations operating in the country that push drugs north to U.S. consumers.

Trump campaigned on a promise to use tariffs to get Mexico to slow migration and the flow of illegal drugs north. He posted the first details of his plan to his social media site, Truth Social, on Monday.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump said.

U.S. and global brands produce a wide range of goods in Mexico for export to the United States, under the free trade protections afforded by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA – a deal Trump negotiated and signed during his first term. Tariffs would violate the terms of that agreement.

(This story was updated to add new information.)