While some talk about the theoretical
consequences of a trade war, New Mexicans don’t need to look very far to
see what this means in actuality.
In Santa Teresa, Stanco Metal Products, a
company specializing in coating and assembling steel into
home-furnishings, says that that base steel prices have jumped more than
40 percent since the administration’s announcement of steel imports. In
Mesilla Valley, pecan farmers are on edge about profit margins with an
additional 15 percent retaliatory Chinese tariff on tree nuts hanging
over their heads. And all across New Mexico, local brewers are trying to
make sense of a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent
tariff on imported aluminum – both raw materials needed to package beer.
These challenges facing New Mexico job creators
couldn’t come at a more inopportune time. Even as the national
unemployment rate is at an 18-year low, things are less rosy in the Land
of Enchantment. According to a report by the Santa Fe New Mexican, the
state is still struggling to climb out of the economic recession that
began more than a decade ago.
Most of New Mexico’s 33 counties have higher
unemployment rates than they did prior to the start of the Great
Recession. As a result, the number of New Mexicans living in poverty is
higher than it was back in 2007.
...According to the U.S. Trade Office, in 2015 an
estimated 15,000 jobs in New Mexico depended on goods exports. And in
2016, New Mexican businesses exported $1.6 billion in goods to Mexico
alone, representing 43 percent of the state’s total goods exports. China
was not far behind with $497 million in exports.
Tariff supporters contend that a more aggressive
approach is necessary to curb unfair trading practices and to shrink the
trade deficit. But the smart response to bad policy from others is not
to inflict pain on ourselves...
No comments:
Post a Comment