Lawmakers visit border to assess industrial growth, impact of tariffs

SANTA TERESA — State lawmakers assigned to the Legislature’s Federal Funding Stabilization Subcommittee visited the border Tuesday to hear reports from the industrial and agricultural sectors. They also paid a visit to one of the busiest ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

The bipartisan group of legislators, co-chaired by Sen. William Soules of Las Cruces and Rep. Patricia Lundstrom of Gallup, both Democrats, was created in April by the New Mexico Legislative Council to account for the flow of federal funds through the state and to develop recommendations for the Legislature. The subcommittee spent three days in Doña Ana County from Monday through Wednesday.

Tuesday’s session focused on how tariffs and other Trump administration policies affect manufacturing, agriculture, logistics and the expansion of industrial investment in Santa Teresa.

The value of trading through the Santa Teresa Port of Entry, imports and exports, grew 44% during 2024 to $39.8 billion, per the Border Industrial Association, whose director, Jerry Pacheco, addressed the lawmakers.

Additionally, updated research from New Mexico State University’s Center for Border Economic Development reports that Santa Teresa’s port and industrial parks contributed $2 billion to the state’s economy in 2023.

Multiple construction projects are underway in the community adjacent to Sunland Park, El Paso, Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico, as supports for new highway overpasses and industrial buildings are being erected and crews prepare vacant land for a massive new data center complex for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and OpenAI. The data center alone represents an anticipated $165 billion investment over three decades.

Pacheco said Santa Teresa is poised to take advantage of federal plans to modernize El Paso’s Bridge of the Americas Port of Entry and exclude commercial traffic there.

A feasibility study released last year by the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties including ports of entry, recommended major expansions to commercial and passenger facilities that would more than triple the Santa Teresa port’s size.

”This is the state’s best chance to diversify our economy,” Pacheco said.

Despite exuberant growth, tariff policies have put the brakes on some investments, such as a pilot program that would have produced all-electric school buses for local school districts. Pacheco said the frequently-changing rollout of the White House’s trade policy, emphasizing duties on imports, have affected supply chains, shipping and decisions on major investments by foreign companies to build or expand their presence here.

At the same time, looking forward, Pacheco said New Mexico was “scrambling” to build infrastructure needed to sustain the growth already underway — and to position New Mexicans for the resulting jobs.

”We’re bringing in the projects and scrambling to bring in the infrastructure,” Pacheco said.

A prominent concern throughout the meeting was water infrastructure, as plans move forward for more industrial buildings as well as housing and commercial business developments. Santa Teresa and Sunland Park’s water utility, the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, is in the process of being absorbed into Sunland Park’s government with the county assuming responsibility outside the city.

The county is also seeking state funding for a desalination plant that would treat brackish water from an abundant aquifer beneath county land.

Daniel Manzanares, director of the binational Unión Ganadera Regional De Chihuahua Co-op, addressed the monthslong closure of livestock ports to Mexican cattle, horses and bison over the presence of New World screwworm, a parasite that is dangerous to livestock — but manageable, Manzanares argued.

He expressed frustration over “hysteria” about the parasite, which he said had become a “political pawn” in Washington, costing U.S. businesses tens of millions of dollars.

“How are you going to stop a hawk from flying over the border?” Manzanares asked rhetorically, referring to the suspension of imports.

Cattle imports from Mexico amounted to $1.3 billion in 2024. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has called the screwworm’s recent migration into southern Mexico — hundreds of miles from the U.S. border — a severe threat to the industry, food supply and public health. The current suspension resumed in July, just two days into a phased reopening after a previous closure. Exports remain open.

Manzanares also expressed concerns about the professional labor force needed in livestock industries, referring to it as laborious and potentially hazardous work requiring dedication and skill he said has dwindled.

Lawmakers also heard from representatives of manufacturing and logistics enterprises, who said unpredictable and changing White House tariff policies made pricing and operational strategies difficult.

Disruptions to supply chains, where components sometimes cross the border multiple times during manufacturing, and confusing rules are causing exporters to modify their operations, at the expense of importers and industries downstream, they told the subcommittee.

State Sen. James Townsend, R-Artesia, expressed sympathy but also backed the White House’s tariff strategy, saying, “We got our jobs taken away from us because people took advantage of us. We have to bring jobs back to the U.S., we need to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and the process is painful. … We have to straighten out trade deficits across the world.”

Lundstrom suggested the tariffs’ “inconsistent rollout” and its consequences were an imposition on businesses and suggested the subcommittee consider ways the Legislature could stabilize costs of construction, to safeguard the building of hospitals and schools as well as industrial facilities.

The subcommittee’s guests had suggestions of their own, ranging from appealing to federal officials for stable trade policy and improved communication; tax rebates or credits to offset losses in the current environment; and working with Mexican counterparts on improved security for key highways in Chihuahua accessing the Santa Teresa Port of Entry.