HOUSTON, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Politicians and scholars of U.S. state of Texas slammed on U.S. President Donald Trump's new Mexico tariff decision Thursday night, saying it will harm the Texas economy.
Filemon Vela, U.S. Congressman from southern Texas, called Trump's tariff plan "erratic and nonsensical", saying in a statement that the decision is to "turn one problem into another."
Among U.S. states, Texas has the longest stretch of the border with Mexico. Sharing about 2,000-km border with Texas, Mexico is the state's largest trading partner. According to U.S. Department of Commerce, Texas imported around 107 billion U.S. dollars of goods from Mexico last year, representing 35 percent of the state' total import.
Experts believed Trump's surprise plan to levy tariffs on all goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico would strike a hammer blow to Texas, threatening the state's economy and causing financial pain for the state's businesses and consumers.
Stephanie Leutert, director of Mexico Security Initiative at University of Texas at Austin, tweeted that American consumers should be ready for rising prices of commodities.
"Dear America, get ready to pay more for pretty much everything until Mexico solves a problem that no country in the world has ever been able to fix," she tweeted Thursday night.
"Beyond this being terrible policy, it's ridiculous to think that Mexico could stop migration," she twitted.
Corn and soybeans were lower in overnight trading amid rising trade tensions between the United States and Mexico. Mexico is the biggest buyer of U.S. corn. Some investors worry that agriculture will be used as a pawn as Mexico is likely to impose countermeasures on imports of U.S. goods.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would impose a new 5-percent tariff on all imported Mexican goods beginning June 10 so as to pressure the country to halt undocumented migrants crossing the border.
