By Jackie Luna
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – While most of Los Angeles sleeps, Melquiades Flores, 58, starts his day at 1 a.m., overseeing the unloading of products at M&M Tomatoes and Chile Company, the wholesaler he founded in 2019.
But the business Flores hopes to one day leave to his children is bracing for a disruption.
US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada when he takes office on January 20, plus an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods. .
“Product of Mexico” is stamped on nearly every box of tomatoes and chiles that arrive at the downtown Flores warehouse, destined for homes, hotels and restaurant kitchens across the city.
“People will have to pay a higher price. Whatever they charge us, we will pass on to the consumer,” Flores said from his section of the largest complex, the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market.
Whatever happens in January, Flores says he has no choice but to continue importing products from Mexico, especially in winter. The chile growing season in California lasts four months, from August to November, he says. The rest of the year it obtains product from the Mexican states of Sinaloa, Baja California and Sonora.
His team stacks boxes and boxes of tomatoes of all sizes and shades of red, plus some bright green to make a tasty tomatillo salsa.
“Any tariff is an added tax that impacts all of us, including those who buy one pound, two pounds, one thousand or 10,000 pounds,” said Flores, who has lived in Los Angeles for 40 years and is originally from the Mexican state. from Morelos.
Trump has expressed his love for tariffs, presumably to raise revenue and protect American industries from imports, but he avoids talking about the inflationary effect or the impact of possible retaliation by the United States’ three main trading partners.
Officials from Mexico, Canada and China and major industry groups have warned that Trump’s proposed tariffs would hurt the economies of everyone involved, cause inflation to rise and harm labor markets.
“The president should have first seen how much this will affect everyone before speaking,” Flores said.
(This story has been corrected to say “chili growing season,” not “tomato growing season,” in paragraph 6)