Iconic Mexican Products May Be in Jeopardy With Trump Tariffs 

In western Mexico, no crop supplies an income for so many small growers as avocados. But avocado growers, pickers and packers worry that U.S. consumers, faced with 25 percent higher prices, may just skip the guacamole.

“I think that when there is an increase in the price for any product, demand declines,” said avocado grower Enrique Espinoza. Orchards like his are the economic lifeblood in the western Mexico state of Michoacan. “It would be a tragedy if they closed down (the border) on us,” he said.

Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration — when he said he would impose tariffs — couldn’t come at a worse time: It’s around when Mexico starts shipping crates of the green fruit north for Super Bowl Sunday, the annual peak of consumption.

Mexican business leader Gina Diez Barroso told a news conference Tuesday that one U.S. agriculture official told her he had never had as many complaints as when the U.S. government halted import inspections on Mexican avocados in 2022.

Rather, the reverse effect has him worried; if Mexico retaliates with its own tariffs, as President Claudia Sheinbaum has suggested, Mexicans will face not just a drop in income, but high prices for U.S. products like corn, which is a main supply of feed for animals in Mexico.

“There are more poor people here, so in some ways it is going to hit us,” Espinoza said. “The United States can pay 25 percent more for Mexican products, very few of us have enough money to pay 25 percent more for what we import from the United States.”

“At the end of the day, tariffs on spirits products from our neighbors to the north and south are going to hurt U.S. consumers and lead to job losses across the U.S. hospitality industry just as these businesses continue their long recovery from the pandemic,” the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. said in a statement.

The tariffs would probably plunge Mexico into an immediate recession. Mexican financial group Banco Base estimated in a report that for every 1 percent that Mexican exports increase in price, their volume falls by 1.33 percent.

“This would be reflected in a 4.4 percent drop in gross domestic product,” the bank wrote, adding “the decline would not just occur in 2025, but would get more serious the longer the tariffs last.”

Mexico’s Economy Secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, said Wednesday that 88 percent percent of all North American pickup trucks come from Mexico, though it was unclear if he meant just parts of the trucks or their final assembly.