Mexico’s trade deficit with China reached nearly US $120B in 2024

Mexico has doubled its commercialized shortage with China implicit the past 10 years, hitting astir US $120 cardinal past year.

The reddish numbers roseate to a grounds $119.86 cardinal successful 2024, according to nationalist statistic bureau INEGI, the effect of US $9.94 cardinal successful exports and a whopping US $129.795 cardinal successful imports.

Slowing exports to China helped the shortage to balloon arsenic the worth of items shipped from Mexico to China declined for a 2nd consecutive year.

Much of what Mexico imports from China are intermediate goods utilized by Mexican companies to nutrient last export goods. One illustration is copper, without which the Mexican car manufacture would travel to a standstill. 

The inclusion of Chinese parts successful products exported to the U.S. makes them incompatible with the existing U.S.-Mexico-Canada escaped commercialized statement (USMCA), meaning they volition beryllium taxable to 30% tariffs opening Aug. 1.

Mexico’s reliance connected Chinese goods is attributable to the planetary competitiveness of Chinese parts and components, arsenic good arsenic the debased integration of immoderate home accumulation chains, for example, televisions and machinery.

WSJ: Sheinbaum medication wants US assistance to trim Mexico’s imports from China

But Trump’s determination to decouple commercialized with China (the U.S. shortage with China has fallen astir 30%) volition unit Mexico to reconsider its ain commercialized narration with the world’s second-largest economy.

Since Trump’s archetypal term, China’s commercialized with the U.S. has shrunk to one-third its value, hitting a 23-year-low, according to Forbes magazine. In May, China accounted for conscionable 5.89% of each U.S. trade, its lowest monthly percent since 2002 and down from 17.77% successful aboriginal 2017.

This dilemma is thing Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard has addressed previously.  

The CEESP, an economical deliberation tank, issued a study explaining however “dependence connected Chinese inputs and anemic home substitutes volition bounds [Mexico’s] technological improvement and reenforce a signifier of assembly alternatively than innovation.”

In November 2024, Ebrard floated the thought of a associated U.S.-Canada-Mexico project to summation manufacturing capableness successful North America and trim reliance connected Chinese imports.

Other associated argumentation proposals included azygous tariffs connected Chinese goods and caller partnerships to integrate proviso chains successful cardinal sectors.

With reports from El Economista and Forbes