Tijuana investment slowdown forces around 60 companies to pause growth amid tariff uncertainty, as local officials streamline permits and expand border crossings to revive confidence.
Around 60 companies have paused expansion or new investment plans in Tijuana, city officials revealed this week, citing uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariff threats. While operations continue, businesses have put growth on hold as they await clearer trade policy direction, said Pedro Montejo Peterson, the city’s Secretary of Economic Development.
“This isn’t an industrial outflow, but it does mark a slowdown in the dynamism we saw since the pandemic,” Montejo explained. “We track about 60 companies that haven’t stopped operating, but they have stopped growing. They’re on standby until the US–Mexico relationship reaches a clearer point of definition.”
Since 2020, nearly 90 percent of Tijuana’s industrial growth came from expansions by companies already on site. New investment, however, has stalled, reflecting hesitancy among both domestic and international firms amid the threat of higher U.S. import duties and a potentially hostile review of the USMCA trade deal. Although Montejo would not estimate the total capital now on hold, he said city leaders expect investment to resume once confidence returns.
To counter the slowdown, Tijuana’s municipal government is accelerating administrative reforms. A priority is digitizing business procedures via a new digital agency backed by federal and state authorities. The initiative aims to cut permit processing times by up to 60 percent.
“You no longer have to make five separate trips. Once information enters our unified digital system, we know it’s validated,” Montejo noted. Streamlined approvals should help reduce one barrier companies face when deciding whether to expand locally or shift investment elsewhere in Mexico.
Cross-border mobility also ranks high on Tijuana’s agenda. The city partnered with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to open four additional lanes at the San Ysidro port of entry, boosting capacity from 27 to 31 booths. That change has already sped up vehicle crossings, which average 1 ,172 ,000 per month, plus roughly 4 ,000 commercial trucks daily.
Officials are exploring realigning lane assignments to further optimize traffic flow. Improved border efficiency not only benefits local manufacturers but also reassures investors that Tijuana remains a competitive gateway for goods moving north.
Montejo said Tijuana’s long-term appeal as a manufacturing hub rests on both policy stability and continued infrastructure investment. “When confidence improves, we expect these paused investments to move forward,” he said. In the meantime, the city is banking on faster approvals, better logistics and smoother border crossings to keep its economy on track despite trade policy headwinds.
