Towards the next review of the Mexico-United States-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement in 2026, next month the Mexican government will launch a program for global companies established in Mexico to replace intermediate goods imported from China, reported Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
“We are going to present the Mexico Plan at the beginning of January. The objective of the Mexico Plan is to produce in Mexico much of what is imported today and to generate value chains, from different industrial sectors, particularly, in our country,” said Sheinbaum on Friday at a press conference.
She said that the head of the Ministry of Finance, Rogelio Ramírez de la O, has already warned that “a lot is being imported from Asia and, in particular, from China, that there is a trade deficit.”
International trade data, reviewed by SteelOrbis, show that before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) established a free-trade zone in North America (Canada, Mexico, and the United States), in 1993 Mexico imported 69.7 percent of the total from the United States and 0.6 percent from China.
As of the 31st year of NAFTA, now replaced by USMCA, Mexico imports 40.4 percent of the total from the United States and 20.5 percent from China. The average annual growth rate of imports in three decades with the United States was 3.1 percent and with China 17.4 percent.
In the period from January to September of this year, Mexico registered a trade surplus with the United States of $192 billion and with China there is a trade deficit of $88.9 billion.
“Much of what is imported (from China) can be produced in Mexico (...) There must be an industrial policy, and what can be manufactured must be manufactured here.
Although the plan will be presented next month, the president said that she has already invited some industrialists to review their processes in their companies to see “what parts can be manufactured in Mexico; and how the chain can be helped so that from small and micro-enterprises to large companies can have these productive chains, which are produced here (in Mexico).”