WAIT TIMES INCREASE FIVE-FOLD AT US-MEXICO BORDER

…The streets around the Otay Mesa commercial crossing into San Diego were filled with bored and frustrated truckers.

But Trump may still close the border, regardless of who it might harm.

The backed-up border checkpoints are playing hell for everyone from bankers and business leaders, to local residents and even Mexico’s foreign minister.  They call the Trump reassignment of hundreds of border officers to other parts of the nearly 2,000-mile boundary a “very bad idea.” This shift in enforcement personnel is overwhelming the checkpoints and seriously slowing the free flow of goods and services, in some cases increasing wait times up to 10 hours.

Observers described the southern boundary as being a slow-motion version of the border closure that President Trump threatened two weeks ago before he backed down.  He did finally back down, while individuals on both sides of the political aisles protested that shutting down the border would seriously hurt the economy.

Trump finally said he would consider only closing the border as a punitive measure if Mexico didn’t take steps to reduce the flow of migrants to the United States within the next year.

But the truth is, that Trump might still shut the border, even though Mexico is the nation’s largest trading partner.  That kind of move would shut down the US automotive industry alone, just due the amount of automobile component business between Mexico and the US auto industry.

Automakers are the most vulnerable to a prolonged border slowdown. The industry sends half-finished cars and trucks back and forth across the southern border multiple times as they rely on Mexican factories to produce critical parts, such as the wire harnesses that organize a vehicle’s electrical cables. Continued disruption of any border shipping could soon interrupt production at multiple American factories, not just for automobiles.

“That’s the concern,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce. “We’re getting closer to that point.”

One business executive in Eagle Pass, Texas, said that if the border were closed for any real time, the town of Eagle Pass would die.  That’s how dependent they are on the border trade with Mexico.

Juan Macareno, a truck driver from Ensenada, Mexico, said he has waited as long as eight hours to clear the border checkpoints during the past two weeks, up from the usual two hours.  He spend the time chatting on the phone and scrolling through his WhatsApp messages as traffic just inches along.

“Just waiting,” he said, after driving a produce-filled truck into California. “You have nothing to do.”  Drivers say they are taking fewer routes, and others have been forced to stay overnight at some checkpoints because there aren’t enough officers to process the long lines of trucks.

Homeland Security officials say they are not intentionally slowing down processing times, but they acknowledge the frustrations the long lines have produced are helping them convey the severity of the border crisis.

With 545 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers reassigned to help the Border Patrol, a negative impact on travel times and cargo inspections was inevitable, one DHS official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer candid views.  “Our intention is not to slow down commerce, it’s to provide some relief to what’s going on at the border,” the official said.

Companies already are rerouting cargo.  In a survey, one-third of those responding to the survey said it would only take one additional day of backlog traffic to switch cargoes from trucks to airfreight.  “All of those asked said they would seek alternatives if the delays continue for a week, but these alternatives are very costly.”

The Port of Nogales, Ariz., a chronically understaffed major crossing point for fresh fruit and vegetables, was slated to receive an extra 75 border agents. But those agents have been redeployed to cope with the migrant surge, this is according to Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.

“This is the new normal until they solve the problem at the border,” he said Wednesday.

The Texas International Produce Association asked the CBP Director to dispatch officers and agents from the northern US border and seaports to reduce delays. Their members report that wait times to cross the border have risen from 30 minutes to 4½  hours.

“We haven’t seen issues like this in probably six years,” said Dante Galeazzi, CEO and president of the association, adding that the group is warning supermarkets and restaurants to expect delays and possibly shortages of avocados, mangos, limes and other goods. “Obviously we think it’s a bad thing.”

But Trump is more attached to his supporters than he is to the trade issues, and his supporters want the immigrants to be stopped at the border, “no matter what”.

And Trump always listens to his base.

Copyright G.Ater 2019