CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — As quickly because the solar glints over miles of border fence dividing america and Mexico, the engines of cargo vans filled with auto and laptop components roar to life alongside border bridges and bleary-eyed staff file into factories to assemble a mess of merchandise geared towards the U.S. market.
For greater than half a century, this each day rhythm has helped gas the heartbeat of a transnational machine that generated greater than $800 billion in commerce between the U.S. and Mexico in 2024 alone.
Over the previous 12 months, nonetheless, President Donald Trump’s threatened 25% tariffs towards Mexico and Canada have plunged manufacturing hubs all alongside the northern Mexican border into limbo, a state that persists regardless of a one-month reprieve to which Trump agreed on Monday.
Tariffs would cripple Mexican border economies which can be reliant on factories churning out merchandise for the U.S. — auto components, medical provides, laptop elements, myriad electronics — and sure thrust the nation right into a recession, financial forecasters have warned. Some staff marvel how for much longer they’re going to have jobs, whereas enterprise leaders say the uncertainty has already led many traders to start out tightening their purse strings.
“It’s a battle between governments and we’re those most affected,” mentioned 58-year-old truck driver Carlos Ponce, leaning towards his rig on the customs border crossing between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas. “Tomorrow, who is aware of what is going to occur?”
Ponce, who was driving a truck filled with automotive shock absorbers, mentioned he is spent the previous 35 years shifting items throughout the border, simply as his father did earlier than him. Now, he is uncertain how for much longer that can final.
Manufacturing in export-oriented meeting vegetation often known as maquiladoras are the guts of Ciudad Juárez’s economic system, with 97% of its items going to the U.S., in accordance with figures from Mexico’s Financial Ministry.
The factories had been born within the Sixties in an try to spice up financial growth in northern Mexico and decrease costs for U.S. customers. The maquiladora program later took off after the North American Free Commerce Settlement, or NAFTA, was signed in 1994. The settlement was supplanted by an identical pact, the United States-Mexico-Canada Settlement, or USMCA, negotiated between the three international locations throughout Trump’s first time period.
At this time, neon indicators with the dollar-to-peso trade charge flash throughout the town, a reminder of the shut ties binding either side of the border.
“Every thing that occurs in america: its financial, social coverage … straight impacts us as a result of corporations right here in Mexico rely upon what they promote in america,” mentioned Thor Salayandia, head of his household’s auto-parts manufacturing facility in Ciudad Juárez. “America additionally wants Mexico to maintain manufacturing, however they’re not seeing issues like that.”
This week, staff and enterprise leaders alike breathed a sigh of reduction when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum introduced she had negotiated with Trump to delay tariffs one month.
“Now, we’re shopping for time,” Salayandia mentioned.
Staff right here assemble every thing from auto components to laptop panels to T-shirts emblazoned with the American flag, logos of in style U.S. soccer groups and slogans comparable to “Proud to be a federal worker.”
Elements can cross the border a number of occasions earlier than the ultimate product is offered to U.S. customers. That financial interdependence has left many within the metropolis struggling to think about a future with out it. One U.S. firm mentioned it will seemingly have to maneuver a part of its manufacturing within the metropolis to the U.S., however at a pointy value.
Antonio Ruiz, a compliance officer at Tecma, a U.S. agency that helps international corporations arrange store alongside the border, mentioned his was amongst a lot of companies to name emergency conferences over the weekend as financial forecasters warned that the tariffs might drive Mexico right into a recession.
“It’s very troublesome to be ready for one thing that has by no means occurred earlier than,” Ruiz mentioned. “As a lot as you need to put together for it, the very best you are able to do is put together to brace your self within the quick time period.”
Salayandia and economists warn that any type of tax might result in cascading unemployment and rising costs on either side of the border. In Mexico, they are saying, it might additionally spur an increase in violence in border areas by pushing the unemployed into the arms of drug cartels, in addition to a rise in Mexican migration to the U.S.
Manuel Sotelo, a frontrunner of Mexico’s Nationwide Chamber of Freight Transportation who owns a fleet of vans that cross the border every single day, sees the tariff threats as extra of a political energy transfer than a future financial actuality.
“Each international locations could be paralyzed,” mentioned Sotelo, who sat at a desk coated with native newspapers carrying daring headlines on the tariffs, a Trump bobblehead positioned behind him. “As an example he did slap a 25% tariff (on Mexico), what would they do throughout the Tremendous Bowl with out avocados?”
However, Sotelo acknowledges that the tariff speak has already inflicted some injury. He and different enterprise leaders say that over the previous 12 months they’ve watched funding dip in Ciudad Juárez due to political uncertainty, as traders hesitate to funnel their cash into companies that would collapse with the stroke of a pen in Washington.
Whereas Trump’s election has been the first driver of that uncertainty, June elections in Mexico and a controversial judicial reform carried out by Mexico’s governing celebration have added to it. Sotelo mentioned he noticed a 7% drop in enterprise final 12 months, and solely expects that to proceed till lingering tariff threats are resolved.
One collective of maquiladoras within the metropolis says it has seen not less than three factories halt manufacturing.
“Each time we hear this discourse from political leaders, the folks operating our governments, it sends shock waves by the border,” Salayandia mentioned. “As a result of the border is a worldwide thermometer. Our merchandise go all around the world. These corporations will go look in different components of the world the place they provide circumstances to maintain competing.”
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Related Press journalist Fernanda Pesce contributed to this report.