Borderlands Mexico is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: Tariffs forcing nearshoring, regional sourcing, experts say; Kuehne+Nagel boosts cross-border capacity in El Paso; and Motherson invests $50M in Mexico plant to supply Audi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
HOUSTON \u2014 At the 4th annual Houston International Maritime Conference<\/a> (HIMC25), logistics and trade executives said that ongoing shifts in U.S. tariff policy are forcing companies to rethink sourcing, pricing strategies and long-term supply chain planning.<\/p>\n The Tuesday panel \u2014 titled \u201cThe Tariff Effect: Rethinking Sourcing, Manufacturing, and Infrastructure in an Evolving Trade Landscape\u201d \u2014 featured representatives from Igloo, IKEA, and DSV alongside the National Retail Federation (NRF).<\/p>\n HIMC25, held Sunday through Wednesday in downtown Houston, brought together almost 900 executives, ocean carriers, petrochemical producers, economists and trade stakeholders.<\/p>\n Panel moderator Jonathan Gold, NRF\u2019s vice president of supply chain and customs policy, opened the discussion by stressing a basic but often overlooked point: \u201cA tariff is a tax paid by the U.S. importer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo start off, I really want to try and set the current state of trade and tariffs,\u201d Gold said. \u201cI know everybody\u2019s head is spinning from the constant social media posts on new tariffs, which tends to be followed by official notices of guidance days later. I know this makes it very difficult for companies to plan and prepare for tariff changes that seem to happen almost immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Panelists described tariff management as a round-the-clock challenge for customs teams and brokers.<\/p>\n Pete Mento, director customs and international trade at global freight forwarder DSV, said constant rule changes have created \u201ca never-ending\u201d stream of reclassifications, regulatory reviews and pricing recalculations.<\/p>\n He warned that customs brokers are facing heavy scrutiny and rising workloads as importers look for clarity on rapidly changing tariff schedules.<\/p>\n \u201cFor an importer, they depend on a broker for that type of advice. They should depend on a broker for that type of advice, and a broker should give it. You don\u2019t want to be wrong,\u201d Mento said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe man hours that have been added to an entry, the extra amount of time, and then just the time keeping up with everything, the constant changes, it\u2019s been very difficult. I tell everyone, hug a broker, right? You know, I know I could use one. Hug a broker and let them know that you appreciate what they\u2019re doing because it has been positive and ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n Igloo\u2019s international logistics and compliance manager, Cris Borzani, said ongoing tariffs and pricing changes have made it difficult to keep leadership informed.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest challenges is actually communicating this information with leadership, knowing that information changes on the fly. I\u2019ve caught myself writing emails, and midway through the email, I get a notification that tariffs have either gone up or gone down,\u201d Borzani said.<\/p>\n Christopher Smith, who leads customs and trade advisory efforts for IKEA North America, said legacy systems are not built to manage layered tariffs \u2014 driving dependence on brokers to manually apply additional duties to tens of thousands of entries each year.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re doing close to 80,000 entries a year, that\u2019s a big reliance on your broker,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe other big one I would say is trying to manage management\u2019s expectations, especially with tweeted information, where it\u2019s unofficial and \u2026 maybe weeks or months of hope. Walking in in the morning to get the email of, \u201cwhat does this tweet mean to us?\u201d Nothing yet, because it\u2019s, until I get the Federal Register with the actual information to be able to do an analysis on what the impact could be.\u201d<\/p>\n Panelists said many companies have spent several years absorbing tariff costs rather than passing them on to customers \u2014 but those strategies are being exhausted.<\/p>\n IKEA, for example, is now projecting more than $400 million in additional tariff-related costs this year in the U.S. market alone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can take us over two years to bring up a new supplier, so we haven\u2019t seen any major supply chain shift,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see that now that things have kind of settled out a little bit with the current reciprocal tariff rates. But we\u2019re actually looking at potential shifts to Europe because of the U.S.-European deal. We\u2019re actually getting panicked questions from some of our purchasers in their landed cost simulations because they\u2019re not used to seeing Europe come up as a better landed cost than Asia Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Igloo described shifting production out of China into Cambodia, Thailand, and increasingly the U.S. While alternative sourcing has helped mitigate some duties, new tariffs on Southeast Asian goods mean \u201cthere\u2019s no safe harbor anymore,\u201d Borzani said.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like there\u2019s no safe space at this point. It\u2019s just trying to mitigate these tariffs as much as possible,\u2019 Borzani said. \u201cOne thing I would suggest is try to grow your relationship with your vendors. If you have some in China, they might have a plus one or a sister company out in Cambodia or Thailand. You might want to really focus on those kinds of relationships, and also you have your drawbacks as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Borzani said one of the biggest challenges with outsourcing to Cambodia is the vessel scheduling.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve worked with multiple ocean carriers that are opening up new trade lanes to focus more on Cambodia, these South and Southeast Asian countries,\u201d Borzani said.<\/p>\n Mento said the U.S. government\u2019s recent trade policies signals a push to economically isolate China and encourage North American regional manufacturing under USMCA. But shifting sourcing is time-consuming and complex: labor capacity, component availability, and transportation infrastructure in Southeast Asia often lag behind China\u2019s.<\/p>\n Still, Mexico is emerging as the strongest nearshoring winner, panelists said \u2014 with Chinese manufacturers themselves opening new factories there to keep access to the U.S. market, Mento said.<\/p>\n \u201cMexico has become the sneaky favorite,\u201d Mento said, calling its industrial growth \u201clike a weed right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Panelists also warned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is leaning more heavily on AI-driven enforcement, including automated audits and transaction reviews.<\/p>\n CBP is now issuing more CF-28 requests \u2014 which are used by CBP to solicit factual information from the importer.and publishing the names of companies found to be in violation \u2014 a major shift in enforcement visibility.<\/p>\n This means companies that rely on Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) arrangements with overseas suppliers may face increased legal exposure if valuation, country-of-origin declarations or supplier information are inaccurate.<\/p>\n \u201cTrade compliance comes first,\u201d Mento said. \u201cThis is now about keeping your company\u2019s name out of the paper.\u201d<\/p>\n Kuehne+Nagel<\/a>, the world\u2019s largest 3PL, has expanded its cross-border logistics footprint in El Paso, Texas, adding a 217,431-square-foot facility next to its existing site to support growing U.S.-Mexico trade flows.<\/p>\n The new bonded warehouse includes 53 dock doors, 65 trailer spaces, cross-dock capabilities and vertically racked storage to handle increased northbound and southbound freight volumes amid ongoing nearshoring-driven demand, according to a news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company said its previous 362,992-square-foot facility reached full capacity within a year, underscoring the need for scalable growth at the border.<\/p>\n Headquartered in Switzerland, Kuehne+Nagel has over 80,000 employees at 1,300 locations in 100 countries.<\/p>\n India-based auto parts supplier Motherson Group<\/a> will invest $50 million to expand its plant in Zitlaltepec, Tlaxcala, Mexico, adding a new paint area and six injection molding machines to produce components for Audi\u2019s Q5 and EQ7 models, according to Mexico Business News<\/a>.<\/p>\n The project is expected to create 150 direct jobs and 300 indirect jobs, with construction scheduled for completion between April and July 2026.<\/p>\n State officials said the investment will boost regional manufacturing capacity and support local employment, with recruitment set to begin in the second quarter of 2026 through job fairs and digital platforms.<\/p>\n The post Borderlands Mexico: Tariffs forcing nearshoring, regional sourcing, experts say<\/a> appeared first on FreightWaves<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Borderlands Mexico is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of 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