EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — President Trump announced he will immediately enact a 10% global tariff under a trade law, this after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some previously imposed tariffs were illegal.
“The way he was using the tariffs was to force other countries to lower their cost to us because they’re (foreign countries) putting tremendous tariffs on our goods into their country; so he was trying to level the playing field and that is a good thing,” El Paso County Republican Party Chairman Michael Aboud said.
For Chairman Aboud, tariffs are not always good, but they’re also not always bad, and he wishes the Supreme Court had considered that instead of voting the way they did.
“President Trump is talking about sending $2,500 or another amount that it ends up being back to the voters, which is great, that’s a benefit and that kind of money compensates us in the borderland for having higher prices; but it’s never fun to pay a higher price,” Chairman Aboud added.
For Chairman Aboud, Congress needs to pass a law that allows the president or the federal government to impose tariffs that match what other countries are doing and includes a provision for the president to negotiate with a country that might have high tariffs temporarily because of what’s going on in its economy and intends to bring those tariffs down after a short period.
ABC-7 also spoke with the founder of the El Paso Central Business Association, Tanny Berg, who said in El Paso, just like the rest of the country, tariffs are boundaries that require countries to pay duties and taxes on properties that are going to be imported into the U.S.
“Prices of avocados, cars, clothing, everything that’s made somewhere else, we as Americans will have to pay more for,” CBA founder Berg said.
“We’ll have to wait and see what happens, I mean, it’s just too soon. The decision was made today. In a couple of days, you’re going to see the executive branch come up with an alternative way of continuing to oppose the chips. Even today, they came back with a 10% across-the-board tariff. There are ways that the executive branch can impose these tariffs legitimately, and it’s up to the legislative and judicial branches to decide that it’s good or bad for the rest of the country.”
According to Berg, the border has an interdependency with the maquiladora industry and Juárez, because what happens south of the border also affects what happens north of the Rio Grande.
“So the cost of goods upon which those tariffs were levied are going to have to be passed through to the consumers who buy those goods; fundamentally, we’re talking about cars, we’re talking about food, farmers, both on this side and that side, that are struggling to stay in business,” Berg said. “So the long-term effects are manifest, but at the end of the day, this president believes that in the end, it will encourage growth within our country, and that remains to be seen.”
For Berg, this is a suggestion based on the fact that local business leaders want businesses in the country to grow in the future.
“I would definitely like to see him start working more on gas and oil pricing so that the price at the pump will get back down, well under $2 a gallon, and we should be somewhere around $1.50; that would help a lot more than just concentrating on the tariffs,” Chairman Aboud also said.