Mexicans on the US border anxiously awaited the outcome of the US presidential election on Tuesday, plagued by fears of economic disaster if Republican Donald Trump wins and tries to choke local industry, isolate the country and deport millions. Trump's campaign has been one of the most unpopular in living memory in Mexico, ranging from stinging verbal attacks on its migrants, threats against its trade agreements, to his repeated vows to seal off the country behind a huge border wall that he insists Mexico will pay for.
Nowhere has the bad-tempered contest been felt more acutely than in the Mexican cities straddling the US border, which hundreds of thousands of people cross for work every day, and acts as a bridge for $500 billion in annual bilateral trade. Trump launched his bid accusing Mexico of sending rapists and drug peddlers across the border, prompting the government to accuse him of stirring up hatred and fanning concerns on the border that racial prejudice is becoming more acceptable. The tycoon says he could scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement that took effect in Mexico, the United States and Canada in 1994, and he has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on Mexican-made goods to help US industry. "We're very worried. We know what Donald Trump is looking to do, which is limit the imports, he wants to manufacture everything in the States," said Marcello Hinojosa, president in the border city of Tijuana of industry group Canacintra.
"But this has been analyzed by both the United States and by Mexico and it's suicide for both countries."
Mexican business leaders say about 40 percent of the average Mexican factory export is made of US content and argue the two manufacturing sectors are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to take steps against one without damaging the other.
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