Mesa Mayor John Giles hopes Mexico tariffs don’t come to pass

PHOENIX – A weekend trip to a Mexico resort town sounds like fun but for Mesa Mayor John Giles, it was work – a lot of it.

Giles and mayors from more than 130 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico were invited to the inaugural North American Mayors summit in Los Cabos, Mexico last weekend.

“This meeting was scheduled prior to the threat of the tariffs, for a lot of important reasons,” Giles said Monday on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News.

But “the tariffs kind of took over as the main topic of conversation,” he said.

The gathering opened Thursday, as a 5% tariff from President Donald Trump against Mexico imports loomed.

By Friday an immigration deal that included Mexico agreeing to deploy thousands of national guard troops to its border with Guatemala was announced. The move ended tariffs that could have gone into effect Monday.

But Trump tweeted Sunday that “we can always go back to our previous, very profitable position of Tariffs.”

The president added he didn’t believe it would be necessary.

“I can tell you on the Mexican side and on the border states side, that everyone condemns the idea of tariffs as a really bad idea,” Giles said.

“Hopefully the Trump administration caught on to that.”

Glad to have the opportunity to talk about the importance of our border agreement with Mexico.  The joint effort between our two countries will help address the severe border crisis and will do it without negatively impacting trade. https://t.co/OpGdS6gr5R

— Mayor John Giles (@MayorGiles) June 9, 2019

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with the group.

“The speech … was very conciliatory,” Giles said.

“He made a point of saying that Mexico was very anxious to avoid confrontation with the United States and was very interested in continuing the friendship.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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