TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Factories in Mexico actually mean business for Tucson area companies.
They do a big business sending those factories the materials they need to build their products.
Many Arizona businesses view Mexican factories as customers, not competitors.
There's a lot of concern about whether factories in Mexico cost jobs here in the US but what people don't tend to see is how many jobs in Mexico lead to jobs in Tucson.
PJ Miles says hisfamily's label company does about three million dollars in business a year---and about 70 percent of it goes to Mexico to help factories---or maquilas complete products that range from auto parts to medical supplies to electronics, to appliances.
He says, “Produce very heavily. You'll see our stuff on tomatoes, grapes, the plastic clamshells with your grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, that type of stuff. We do about 350 million labels a year."
At the City of Tucson Juan Padres works to help Tucson area companies sell their products into Mexico. He says Arizona companies already sell more than eight billion dollars in goods to Mexico.
Padres says Tucson suppliers are close enough to benefit as Ford adds another car model to the two it already builds in Hermosillo, while the plant Ford canceled farther south would probably have been supplied through Texas.
He says if the new administration adds trade tariffs, companies may leave Mexico looking for cheaper labor.
"The cost is passed down to the consumer so products become more expensive so in order to maintain competitiveness a company may seek another country or overseas when they can mitigate that increase in tariff."
But he says it helps that Mexico is close, so two way trade happens much faster than when products are assembled in Asia.
