MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico celebrated Thursday having dodged the latest round of tariffs from the White House taking aim at dozens of U.S. trading partners around the world, but was also quickly reminded that in a global economy the effects of uncertainty can’t be entirely avoided.
President Claudia Sheinbaum said the free-trade agreement signed by Mexico, Canada and the U.S. during Trump’s first administration had shielded Mexico.
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Cars are parked outside of the Stellantis car assembly plant in Mexico City, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Workers arrive at the Stellantis car assembly plant in Toluca, Mexico, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A worker sands metal at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Bundles of copper cables sit at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A worker cuts cables at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
An employee works at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives her morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Now her government will focus on the existing 25% U.S. tariffs on imported autos, steel and aluminum, while accelerating domestic production to safeguard jobs and reduce imports.
“During my last call with President Trump, I said that, in the case of reciprocal tariffs, my understanding was that there wouldn’t be tariffs (on Mexico), because Mexico doesn’t place tariffs on the United States," Sheinbaum said.
Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard noted that despite having free-trade agreements with the U.S., many countries were targeted by the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday on what he dubbed “Liberation Day.” Trump framed the tariffs as a way to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
Noting that Mexico escaped the latest round of tariffs, Ebrard said swaths of Mexican exports including agricultural products like avocados, clothing and electronics will continue to enter the U.S. without import duties.
Ebrard said it wasn't a given that the free-trade agreement would be preserved, “because in a new commercial order based on tariffs it's very hard for a free-trade agreement to survive.” The fact that it did, puts Mexico at a competitive advantage, because “it's going to be cheaper to produce in Mexico than in any other part of the world.”
Oscar Ocampo, a specialist in foreign trade at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a think tank, said “the United States is closing off to the rest of the world and in relative terms closing off less with Mexico and that is an opportunity.”
Sheinbaum is seeking to use that opportunity to encourage companies producing in Mexico who had not been exporting under the free-trade agreement for various reasons to take the necessary steps to qualify. She cited major German auto producers as an example.
Qualifying for the free-trade agreement could involve anything from doing paperwork to making adjustments to the sourcing of a product.
Despite Trump's latest tariffs not being imposed on Mexico, the uncertainty they created and the interconnectedness of the North American auto supply chains meant it didn’t take long for the effects to touch Mexico.
Stellantis, maker of auto brands including Dodge and Jeep, announced that it would pause production at its assembly plant in Toluca west of Mexico City for the month of April while it assesses the tariffs' impact on its operations. The company has more than 15,000 employees in Mexico. A similar temporary production halt was scheduled for an assembly plant in Canada and some 900 workers were to be temporarily laid off across several plants in the United States.
That uncertainty is part of the reasons why Sheinbaum is pushing Plan Mexico, an initiative to promote and cultivate more domestic production.
As an example, she cited a collaboration between her government, local universities and Mexican companies Megaflux and Dina to produce electric buses for public transportation.
Ebrard said recently that the buses represent not only a technological advance in Mexico, but also a “strategic decision” in favor of Mexico’s industrial sovereignty.
At a factory in Mexico City, the electric buses called Taruk — trail-runner in the Indigenous Yaqui language – are already in production. Megaflux Director General Roberto Gottfried said the company hopes to deliver some 200 by year's end.
He noted that some 70% of the Taruk's components are produced in Mexico, including its motor, but the lithium batteries that power them come from China.
In a country where one out of every three people use public transportation every day, developing this sector domestically is critical, Gottfried said.
Despite the global economic challenges presented by the uncertainty caused by tariffs, he said, Mexico’s large internal market gives the initiative a competitive advantage to develop and weather the storm.
Cars are parked outside of the Stellantis car assembly plant in Mexico City, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Workers arrive at the Stellantis car assembly plant in Toluca, Mexico, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A worker sands metal at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Bundles of copper cables sit at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
A worker cuts cables at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
An employee works at a plant that produces parts for large electric vehicles in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives her morning press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.
Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.
“I think everybody was shocked at how quick (the river) actually did come up,” said salon owner Jessica Tuggle, who was watching Monday as murky brown water approached her business in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital along the swollen Kentucky River.
She said that as each new wave of rain arrived over the weekend, anxious residents hoped for a reprieve so they could just figure out how bad things would get and how to prepare. She and friends packed up everything she could haul out of her salon, including styling chairs, hair products and electronics, and they took it all to a nearby tap house up the hill.
“Everybody was just ‘stop raining, stop raining’ so we could get an idea of what the worst situation would be,” she said.
Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to approach a record crest on Monday.
For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.
“As long as I’ve been alive — and I’m 52 — this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant downtown.
“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”
The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.
The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.
In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.
The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.
Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.
The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas — making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.
Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.
Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.
“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.
In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.
For some, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.
In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon.
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in New York; Kimberlee Kruesi, in Nashville; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago.
The rising Ohio River partially submerges the bronze statue of James Bradley along Riverside Drive, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Covington, Ky. Cincinnati and the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge are seen across the Ohio River. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
A Canadian goose swims in the rising Ohio River at the intersection of River Riverside Place and Ben Bernstein Place, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Covington, Ky., across the river from Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Carole Smith walks through her flooded home on Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Search and rescue firefighters carry a boat to a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
A flooded neighborhood is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Road crews work to clear Lee County Rd. 681 in Saltillo, Miss, Sunday, April 6, 2025, of downed trees that blocked the road following the severe weather that passed through the area Saturday night. (Thomas Wells /The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP)
CORRECTS TO MICHAEL NOT MICHALE Michael Scott Memering looks out of his trailer after evacuating the Licking River RV Campground that was flooded by the rising waters of the Licking River, seen behind, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Falmouth, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Bill Jones pulls his boat ashore, filled with bottles of bourbon, from a flooded home near the banks of the Kentucky River on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Abner Wagers stands near flooded homes in the rising waters of the Kentucky River in Monterey, Ky,. Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The flooded downtown area is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Search and rescue firefighters speak to a resident in a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
A group of people survey damage at Pounders Mobile Home Park following a strong line of storms in the area in Muscle Shoals, Ala, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (Dan Busey/The TimesDaily via AP)
Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Abner Wagers walks in the rising waters of the Kentucky River on a flooded Monterey Pike in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Abner Wagers, right, and Brayden Baker, both with the Monterey Volunteer Fire Department, walk in the rising waters of the Kentucky River near a flooded home in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
the rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
