The plunge in the peso has throttled the purchasing power of Silvia Guerra’s most important customers: shoppers from south-of-the-border cities like Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Saltillo who walk over the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge a few blocks down Convent Street.
“We are dead over here, business is dead,” Guerra says from her store in Laredo, on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, surrounded by racks of dresses and colorful rolls of fabric as people stroll in and out, without purchasing.
