‘Caught in the storm’: Three NM manufacturers describe Trump tariff impacts

[Thiệu Ngô]

Local managers representing a metal fabricator, textile manufacturer and commercial printer testified to New Mexico lawmakers on Tuesday they are all facing unpredictability and steep cost increases due to President Donald Trump’s tariff measures—costs they are passing on to customers.

By Patrick Lohmann

State legislators on a subcommittee tasked with responding to changes to federal economic policies met Tuesday in Santa Teresa, which borders Mexico and is an emerging state manufacturing hub, to hear from representatives of Monti Inc., Acme Mills and Monarch Litho, Inc.

All three companies operate factories in Santa Teresa, and all have been scrambling to adapt to Trump’s widespread import taxes on numerous countries. Trump has touted the tariffs as a way to spur more domestic manufacturing and re-shoring of important industries to America.

But that doesn’t make sense for Monti and its factory that makes copper busbar in Santa Teresa, according to plant manager Nate Duhl. Copper busbar is “a critical component in electrical equipment and infrastructure,” he said, and the company built the New Mexico factory to meet the growing demand for those products in the Southwest region.

“We want to make it clear that Monti Incorporated fully supports the initiative to reshore manufacturing to the United States. Strengthening domestic capability and supply is essential for long term success of the American industry,” Duhl told lawmakers. “However, in the short term, these efforts must be balanced with the current limitations of the domestic copper supply chain.”

And the domestic copper supply chain doesn’t really exist, he said. About half of all material used to create copper busbar nationally is imported, he said, “not because of cost advantages, but because domestic supply simply cannot meet current demand.”

And the company was “100% dependent” on imported material for its Santa Teresa plant, which processed about 500,000 lbs of copper busbar per month, when tariffs went into effect Aug. 1.

Since then, domestic suppliers have increased pricing 10% to 20% due to the “reduction in competition,” Duhl said.

In August and September, the company passed more than $1 million in additional expenditures onto customers, he said. And it was forced to come up with $2 million at once to pay the increased costs: Money that it would have used to grow and invest locally.

As a result of the tariffs, he said, “We’ve encountered headwinds unlike any we’ve ever seen before.”

In addition to the costs, the unpredictability of tariffs, which Trump has imposed and withdrawn on various countries repeatedly, leads to increased costs to consumers, Alex Sierra, the recently retired manager of textile manufacturer Acme Mills, said.

“It’s the instability of the tariffs: If they’re going to be applied; when they’re going to be applied,” he said. “I might have [shipping] containers on the water that I thought were good, and by the time they hit port, they’re going to have 100% tariff on.”

Guillermo Lopez, managing director of Monarch Litho, Inc., the commercial printer, also cited unpredictability in tariffs, which he said has reduced the company’s market share to the lowest he’s ever seen.

State lawmakers Rep. Patti Lundstrom (D-Gallup) and Sen. James Townsend (R-Artesia) weighed in on the managers’ presentations. Townsend offered sympathy to the managers, while noting that he firmly believes in the tariffs.

“You got caught in a storm that you didn’t really know was coming and, quite frankly, you didn’t deserve,” he said. “You were just trying to make a living under the rules that you have.”

Lundstrom criticized the rollout of the tariffs, and noted they’ve significantly added to construction costs, which were already increasing. She said she would consider ways the state could step in to offset costs to manufacturers, and she asked her colleagues to do the same.

“Can the state provide some support when it comes to stabilization of construction costs? I don’t know what that looks like,” she said.

Sierra and Duhl suggested lawmakers look into a state tax rebate or credit that could reimburse companies for some or all the tariff costs. That would ensure “that we can continue to invest locally in our workforce and our infrastructure,” Duhl said.