Trade Talk • Source New Mexico (2025)

• Economy

UNM academics, U.S. Mexican Consul consider tariff impacts on New Mexico

Shortly before a panel of University of New Mexico academics convened Wednesday to discuss the impact of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, he announced a 90-day pause on some of them, while bumping China’s rate to 125%.

“It underlines how the uncertainty and the unpredictability behind the tariffs may be even more damaging than the actual tariffs,” Jordan Rosenberg Cobos, a law student and president of the International Law Society, which co-hosted the lunchtime talk at the UNM School of Law, said. “It’s like you’re taking a load-bearing wall out of the global economy without much notice,”

The event included UNM professors in political science, economics and trade law, as well as the U.S. Mexican Consul based in Albuquerque, Patricia Pinzón. All agreed that the fluctuating tariffs impact not just consumer prices for New Mexicans, the U.S. and the rest of the world, but also challenge the basis of free trade between countries.

“I’m an optimist, but it’s hard to see a positive outcome,” Law professor Paul Figueroa, whose decades of trade law experience included extensive travel, said. “If the tariffs stand, then the world trade order will forever change,” and it will become less open, more “unsettled and uncertain.”

Tariffs may increase tax revenues, Xiaoyang Wang, an assistant professor in economics, noted, but even the proposed 10% tax on imports drives up prices for both customers and suppliers, and squeezes supply of goods.

Pinzón said Mexico would rather negotiate with the Trump administration for better trade positions, rather than institute retaliatory tariffs.

“We know that when the U.S. does a unilateral decision, our best answer is to negotiate,” she said.

Pinzón also mentioned concerns about enforcement of tariffs at the border, noting that a Mexican auto industry analysis found that one auto part can cross the U.S.-Mexico border eight times before being fully installed.

“So each time a product crosses the border, are we talking about tariffs of 10% or 25%, how is that going to be implemented?” Pinzón said. “We don’t know, experts do not know at the technical level.”

Manuel Montoya, a professor in global economics, said free trade has enabled the growth of wealth for more people in emerging economies across the world.

“The implications of this are not just whether or not your goods and services are going to be expensive,” Montoya said. “It’s going to be about the very nature of political and economic cooperation moving forward for the next 50 to 70 years.”

Takeaways for New Mexicans

The academic panelists said tariff impacts will hit everyone’s wallet, and New Mexicans will have to brace to pay more for clothes, food and electronics.

“I think it’s inevitable that the prices of products that people buy in places like Walmart are going to go up, and that is certainly going to affect people,” said Wendy Hansen, a professor in political science.

Hansen also warned that agricultural products may see additional tariffs responding to the Trump administration’s tariffs, a repeat of what happened in 2018, during the first term.

“I don’t know which products in New Mexico might be affected by it, but China’s best card in their pocket is agriculture, the EU maybe as well,” Hansen said.

Speaking with Source NM after the presentation, Pinzón emphasized that “Mexico is New Mexico’s first trading partner; that gives us a special relationship.”

Pinzón said ongoing discussions center around further development at the Santa Teresa port of entry, calling it “one of the key industrial ports for both Mexico and the U.S.”

Also following the discussion, Montoya told Source his hope is that New Mexico’s adaptation and cultural traditions throughout its history will offer paths forward, despite the economic uncertainty.

“This is a state where we have the birthplace of the atomic bomb, but also some of the longest-standing and resilient agricultural-based systems in the United States,” Montoya said. “That combination tells you a lot about the mixture and the middle ground that New Mexico has.”