President Donald Trump on Monday said he will pause tariffs on Mexico he announced Saturday for a month following a series of deals with that country on border security. Tariffs on Canada and China are still set to take effect on Tuesday at this point, at least at least.
Those countries responded in kind with retaliatory tariffs of their own.
Elvia Díaz, editorial page editor, and columnist Joanna Allhands of the Arizona Republic were in Nogales on Friday, talking to some of the people whose livelihoods depend on trade between our state and our neighbors.
Mexico is, after all, our largest trading partner.
Conversation highlights
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so let's begin just with what the mood was like there because it wasn't unexpected. Trump had been saying he was going to impose these large tariffs on Mexico. You were there just before that ended up happening. What was it like?
ELVIA DÍAZ: Well, I suppose I'll, I'll begin. It was incredibly quiet. It almost felt like the calm before the storm, so it seemed on the surface or at first glance for anyone walking there in downtown Nogales or along the border that it was a business as usual, which was incredibly interesting to us or to me that we didn't see massive border patrols, you know, because President Trump has also been carrying out mass deportations as he, as he put it.
So I will say it was very, very quiet from my standpoint, but incredibly uncertain as well. Once we were able to talk to the people, that's a sense that I, that, that I got. And again, it was just right before the tariffs were supposed to be announced and, you know, a lot has changed since then.
JOANNA ALLHANDS: What was interesting is, you know, just speaking to sort of people on the street and you're speaking to our wait staff at, you know, the restaurant and just kind of out and about. And there's so much fear out there. There's so much of just not knowing what's real and what's not. And, you know, a lot of people who are worried about going to the border or not, or what's this gonna do to my livelihood. It was really interesting to see that.
And then juxtaposed with meeting with people who are in the import business who really were taking this really in stride and saying, you know, we're just going to have to press forward, we're going to have to just adapt and, and do what we do because we don't have any other choice.
GILGER: Right. So tell us about who it is that you spoke with there. These are folks who, who are in the trade business. This is their livelihood. The trade between our two, between our state and In Mexico, right, is also just a massive amount.
ALLHANDS: It is giant, yeah, and especially produce. I don't think that people really understand how much fruits and vegetables come through the Nogales port of entry. It's massive. It's the second largest port in terms of how much food, like pounds of food are coming past. The only one that's larger is far Texas.
It's close to like almost 7 billion pounds of food is coming through that port every year. I don't think people understand that. I also don't think people understand that we, in the last few years have become a net importer of food, which means that we import more food than we export these days. And so, you know, things that you depend on in your grocery store, tomatoes, watermelons, cucumbers, bell peppers, grapes, table grapes, all those kinds of things are largely coming through the Nogales port of entry.
GILGER: Wow, OK. So I want to talk about the economic potential economic impacts just on Arizona, right? Because of what you're talking about there, because of the massive amount of trade that happens, because of the fact that we're a border state. And, and there's trade that happens on both sides, right? Like, as you said, this is not the same balance as it used to be.
What might this look like in Arizona? How might it hurt consumers?
ALLHANDS: Well, definitely prices will go up. I, I don't see any way around avoiding higher prices at the grocery store, because that 25% tariff, the importers have to pay that. And, you know, there's such a small margin on fruits and vegetables anyway, the profit margins there. There's just really no room to be able to absorb that kind of tariff and not have to pass that along to consumers.
So you're going to pay more. And some people may say, well, I don't eat that kind of stuff. But, you know, those things are also used in convenience foods, too. I mean, tomatoes go on your pizza. So all of those things, there will be a trickle down if these tariffs do remain in effect for longer than just a few days as a negotiating tactic.
GILGER: OK, so let me turn to you then, Elvia, and talk a little bit about the political side of this, right? Like, do you think people are, are ready for the fallout that might come from this politically? Like Trump talked about tariffs a lot on the campaign trail. He won the election, presumably people knew this was coming.
DÍAZ: Well, yeah, they knew this was coming and a lot of people still want this to happen. But you know one of the economic impacts that Joanna was talking about, normally when we write about it or, or, you know, on radio, when we talk about it, we're talking about nearly $20 billion trade between Arizona and Sonora, just these two states, for instance, right?
So we're talking about billions of dollars at stake. And then we frame this as this is what the consumer are gonna pay, right, rightly so, but then that's why we wanted to see ourselves that it impacts so many people because importing these tons of fruit and vegetables and all kinds of other products from Mexico and back and forth takes an enormous amount of time of people of, you know, different sectors. You're talking about transportation, you're talking about handlers, you're talking about sales people. So it will impact every sector in Arizona and in the United States. So I still don't think that people understand what it will do if nothing is done.
So politically speaking, we'll see what happened, right? The uncertainty is so great right now. I mean, President Trump said that he's speaking with Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau today and Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, about it. But he did say that he doesn't expect that anything to change because in his words Mexico and Canada owes the United States too much.
But if he, if Trump does keep the tariffs going and if this continues, it will hurt every sector in the United States. So politically speaking, I don't think people get what this means, but they will, they will soon find out what it really means.
GILGER: Do you think this could though result in, you know, putting the U.S. in a more powerful position, especially when it comes to things like immigration and Mexico?
DÍAZ: I mean, clearly the United States has the upper hand. There's no question about it, but then there's the reaction from Mexico and Canada, right? I mean, Mexico is already arresting more immigrants than, than they have done before, non-Mexican immigrants obviously in the Mexican territory, which is what Trump wants, but is he already getting what he supposedly is imposing the tariffs for. So that's why it's so uncertain.
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