President Trump Calls Off Threats To Impose Tariffs On Mexico

By Murphy Woodhouse, Lauren Gilger, Steve Goldstein
Published: Friday, June 7, 2019 - 5:43pm
Updated: Monday, June 10, 2019 - 10:21am
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Many border businesses breathed a sigh of relief after President Donald Trump’s Friday afternoon tweets announcing tariffs would not be imposed on Mexican imports.

In the tweets, Trump said "the tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended."

That’s thanks to what he said was an agreement in which Mexico will "take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border."

Nogales customs broker Guillermo Valencia said the announcement was welcome news.

"It was going to be bad for everybody, and this is the best-case scenario under the circumstances," Valencia said.

Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard shared details of the deal Friday.

"Mexico will significantly increase its efforts to apply Mexican law toward the end of reducing irregular migration, including the deployment of the National Guard throughout the country, prioritizing the southern border (with Guatemala)," Ebrard said.

Ebrard said Mexico will also allow the U.S. to expand its practice of returning border asylum applicants to Mexico while their cases are processed.

The threatened tariffs would have started at 5% and increased to 25% by October. Americans imported $346 billion worth of goods from Mexico last year, $14.5 billion of which crossed through the Nogales commercial port alone.

You can read the joint statement on the deal here

Reported Murphy Woodhouse checked in with The Show to discuss the situation. 

Although President Trump says the 5 percent tariffs won’t be slapped on goods from Mexico, that doesn’t mean he won’t reintroduce that threat sometime in the near future. If he does, where does that leave American businesses? How could it affect Arizona’s relationship with Mexico?

Economist Jim Rounds of Rounds Consulting joined The Show to explain how much that uncertainty impacts the decisions of business leaders.

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