Secretary of the Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, outlined the new tariff policy this Monday. He explained that the objective is to make foreign industries compete in a less advantageous situation.
In this sense, he also used the current situation with steel to exemplify the new scenario. "If we don't raise tariffs, they will end up with our steel industry because they have overproduction and will sell at the price they tell us," he went on to say, maintaining that this could "dismantle the Mexican plants that have taken decades to establish."
"We import the same in dollars as we export, and we want to import less and export more," he explained, emphasizing that the goal of his administration is to achieve "development with justice."
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Ebrard also stated that various federal departments, such as the Ministry of Foreign Relations, the Ministry of the Economy, and the respective embassies, "are in talks with all countries" to avoid diplomatic or bilateral problems.
"We don't want enmity with any country," he emphasized and elaborated: "These are decisions made in agreement with business actors to strengthen employment and development."
Meanwhile, Secretary of the Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, also ruled out an impact on the final price of products. As he explained based on studies by his office, the average increase would be 0.2% due to the high inventory of products affected by the tariff hike.
"This idea that it is not desirable to put an import tax depends on the circumstances," he said. In this regard, he gave an example: "Of the vehicles we are importing, we are not estimating a very high impact because their objective is to gain market share because they send us a price that is too low and is doing us a lot of harm."
"There will not be inflation from these measures," declared the Head of State, who emphasized that "many intermediate products were left with the same tariff" to avoid an impact on the production chain and the final price.
President Claudia Sheinbaum ruled out this Monday during her usual press conference that the application of the new tariffs of almost 50% against a handful of Asian countries will generate an inflationary impact at the national level.
"The objective is not to lose jobs and to generate more jobs from other elements," she stated alongside the Secretary of Economy of her administration, Marcelo Ebrard.
As she explained, Asian countries produce such a large quantity of steel that they can sell the product at a lower cost because there is a 60% overproduction.
"It is a preventive, sensible measure," she concluded.
