McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Milly Chirino owns three retail shops in the downtown business district of this border town.
She sells shoes, handbags, clothes and other wares and she says most of her items are imported from China and will be subject to new tariffs.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday implemented 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, and 10% tariffs on goods from China.
Shoes, handbags and other items are sold at Millys in downtown McAllen, Texas. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report Photos)
“It is going to affect as far as the pricing,” Chirino told Border Report on Tuesday.
But she also put an optimistic spin on the tariffs, saying that consumers who buy from retailers, like her, who buy in bulk, will feel less economic effects from the tariffs, rather than those who buy directly from companies within those countries.
“Maybe they will start buying more local,” she said.
Suresh Mansinghani, aka “The Perfume King,” has operated his perfume shop here for 42 years.
He says he has enough stockpiled supplies that he won’t need to order from China or Mexico for a couple of months, and that means his customers won’t see any price increases for a while.
He is one of 13 perfume shops on a single block in this downtown shopping district that is just north of the Rio Grande and the northern Mexican city of Reynosa.
He says most of his competitors also stockpile their goods, as do his suppliers, and he isn’t worried, at least for now.
“I don’t think it’s going to affect it, because it’s going to take time for all the new merchandise to come in, and it usually takes between 30 to 60 days, so I don’t expect any price increases at all. In fact, I’m dropping my prices just to entice customers to buy more,” Mansinghani said.
He says in his decades in the perfume business, he has weathered tough times. And he doesn’t see this as one to fret.
“What the local people need to know is that don’t overreact. This is just a strategy that the politicians do, and we don’t have any control at all. We just got to go with the flow,” he said.
Several of his employees have worked for him for over 30 years. He says he had a staff meeting Tuesday morning and told them not to worry.
He said business was brisk and kept coming Tuesday, despite the news. He says his retail sales so far this year are up 3% over last year “and I had a fantastic year last year,” he said.
Mansinghani says he supports the tariffs because he doesn’t believe it is right that some countries place tariffs on U.S. goods, but the United States does not put tariffs on their goods.
“I think everything’s going to be fine,” he said.
But shopper Mari Gonzalez, of Edcouch, Texas, says she can’t afford to pay more.
She says inflation already is too high and she believes the tariffs are bad.
“It’s very bad because right now the economy is very down,” she said in Spanish.
Several other shoppers who spoke to Border Report also felt the tariffs were not going to help the economy, but rather hurt it. However, many did not want to give their names.
“This is going to be very hard. It’s going to be very difficult for us,” Gonzalez said.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at [email protected].
