Job losses intensify in Mexican border town due to Trump tariffs

Tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump have led to job cuts in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. - REUTERS

Transcript

00:01Work has decreased at assembly plants like this one in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,

00:06with machines now sitting idle with no one to use them.

00:09Workers like Sebastian Lazaro think U.S. President Donald Trump is to blame, saying, quote,

00:15Because of the tariffs the President of the United States is imposing,

00:20companies are being affected.

00:22For example, here in the workshop there used to be more than 30 of us.

00:26But now there are only six people because work has decreased.

00:29Trump's global trade war has added misery to an industry already facing a litany of challenges,

00:37including rising wages and investor concern over reforms by Mexico's ruling leftist Morena Party.

00:43Plants account for roughly 60 percent of jobs in Ciudad Juarez.

00:47But between June 2023 and June 2025, the municipality of Juarez lost more than 64,000 factory jobs,

00:56including nearly 14,000 in the first six months of the year, according to Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography.

01:04For 11 years, Fabiola Galicia worked at a factory that produced decorative ribbons.

01:10But in August, a representative for Design Group Americas, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month,

01:16shut down its Ciudad Juarez factory, leaving Galicia and some 300 other workers without jobs.

01:23They told us there was no money to pay us, that they didn't have the funds to give us severance.

01:33Most of us are long-time employees here.

01:35And personally, this affects me deeply because both my husband and I worked for this company.

01:41My husband had been here for 13 years, and I had been here for 11 years.

01:49Design Group Americas didn't respond to a request for comment about the layoffs.

01:53In court filings, the company partially blamed its troubles on tariffs imposed by Trump.

01:58Some companies are already pulling out of Ciudad Juarez,

02:01as they move to countries with lower labor costs or decide to invest in the U.S. to avoid tariffs.