Businesses and workers at the US-Mexico border in California have expressed relief over the scrapping of planned tariffs which had threatened to deal a devastating blow to a region built on cross-frontier trade.
Senior officials announced an agreement Friday night to avert the tariffs after three days of intense negotiations to the delight of border workers.
A day earlier, long lines of trucks had stretched into the distance across the border while warehouses on the US side were stuffed with goods as companies raced to shift their inventory in anticipation of the tariffs. But it was business as usual yesterday as a steady stream of freight vehicles passed through Otay Mesa’s sprawling inspection facility.
Trump had threatened a five percent tariff on all Mexican goods coming into the United States on Monday, rising to 25 percent by October, if Mexico did not move to seriously address the northward flow of migrants from Central America.
