{"id":19475,"date":"2019-06-05T13:27:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/ohio-to-juarez-and-back-again-why-tariffs-on-mexico-alarm-the-auto-industry\/"},"modified":"2019-06-05T13:27:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T21:27:00","slug":"ohio-to-juarez-and-back-again-why-tariffs-on-mexico-alarm-the-auto-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/ohio-to-juarez-and-back-again-why-tariffs-on-mexico-alarm-the-auto-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio To Ju\u00e1rez And Back Again: Why Tariffs On Mexico Alarm The Auto Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Camila Domonoske<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n An employee works at a wiring harness and cable assembly manufacturing company in Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez, Mexico, that exports to the U.S. in 2017. The auto industry says threatened tariffs would play havoc with supply chains.<\/p>\n

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Jose Luis Gonzalez\/Reuters<\/p>\n

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Jose Luis Gonzalez\/Reuters<\/p>\n

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President Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, starting next week, if Mexico doesn’t take action to reduce the flood of Central American migrants across the Southern border of the U.S. <\/p>\n

The proposed tariffs \u2014 which would start at 5% on goods crossing the border and could ramp up to 25% over time \u2014 would play havoc with supply chains in the auto industry.<\/p>\n

To understand why, consider a vehicle’s wiring harness \u2014 the car’s nervous system, consisting of a complex network of wires that connect electronic components throughout the car body. <\/p>\n

“It’s a huge, heavy bundle of wires and it’s gotten dramatically more complicated as cars become more electronic,” says Sue Helper, an economist at Case Western Reserve University. “If they’re done wrong, you can get electrical problems that you’ll never solve.” <\/p>\n

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All those wires are carefully laid out in the proper configuration (different for different car models) and bundled together before they’re installed in a vehicle. And for cars made in the U.S., that bundling almost always happens in Mexico \u2014 specifically, in Ju\u00e1rez. It’s time-intensive work, and labor is cheaper in Mexico. <\/p>\n

But that’s just part of the picture.<\/p>\n

The terminals on the ends<\/em> of those wires might be built at an Aptiv factory in Warren, Ohio, shipped to Ju\u00e1rez for assembly into the wiring harness, and then shipped back to the U.S. to be installed in a car. <\/p>\n

Smaller, stand-alone parts have their own wiring harnesses. For instance, a breakaway kit designed to stop a runaway trailer starts as a plastic box made by Hopkins Manufacturing Corp., in Emporia, Kan. Then it gets shipped to Ju\u00e1rez, where other components are combined and a wiring harness installed. Finally, the finished good comes back to the U.S. to go inside a trailer or to get sold to a consumer. <\/p>\n