Ask Bill

Donnie’s 25% tariff on goods from Mexico won’t affect me. I don’t eat avocado toast. To me, guacamole looks like congealed snot. I’ve never been a tequila guy, and Corona beer is even weaker than Coors Light. What else does Mexico export to us?

In dollar volume, Mexico’s top export to the US is car parts and partially-assembled vehicles going to General Motors. One of every three refrigerators sold in the US is made in Mexico. Also, Mexico is the main supplier of computer and TV screens. It’s not all avocados, tequila, and weak beer.

The computer and TV screen thing is not a surprise. My old buddy Bill worked at Shamrock Oil outside of Cleveland in the late ’70s. He, his wife , and daughter really wanted to return to the Scranton area. Cleveland pizza stinks. When a position opened at RCA in Duryea, PA, they leaped at it. RCA manufactured TV picture tubes there. Business was good. When flat screens came into being, RCA made them there as well. When RCA abandoned the TV business, the Dutch electronics giant Philips took over the plant. Business remained good.

One day, out of the blue, management announced that the plant was moving to Mexico in three month’s time. “You will receive one week’s severance pay for every year’s service. Those of you in certain technical positions will be allowed to relocate to Mexico at company expense.”

Bill was among the fortunate few. But with his daughter in high school and strong family ties in Scranton, he chose not to start up a new life in a foreign country. Mexican pizza is even worse than that in Cleveland. He was lucky enough to get a job at an outfit in Carbondale that produced high-tech helmets for the Army. America may not make our own TV or computer screens any more, but we still manufacture war goods. Bill was able to remain there until retirement.

Donnie claims that the US is being treated “very unfairly” by Mexico and Canada. “They don’t take our cars. They don’t take our farm products. They don’t take almost anything. We have a tremendous trade deficit with them.”

Blame that on General Motors or on Philips, Donnie. Don’t blame it on some subterfuge by the Mexican or Canadian governments. It’s your billionaire pals who are shifting American manufacturing jobs overseas. They will not keep the price that US consumers pay constant when your tariffs kick in. They will just add it to the sticker price and maybe a little more.

Ask Bill and he’ll tell where the blame lies.

By Ed Dufton