More and more voices are pointing out that China uses Mexico as a gateway to the United States to evade tariffs.
After Donald Trump imposed tariffs on various Chinese products starting in July 2018, the Asian giant accelerated its sales to Mexico.
While from 2016 to 2017 its exports rose 6.7 percent to reach 74,150.4 million dollars, a year later, at the end of 2018 the increase was 12.6 percent to register 83,510.6 million dollars.
In 2019 they stagnated and in 2020 they fell 11.5 percent, due to Covid, but in the following years they rebounded. Thus, from 2017, before the US tariffs, to 2023, Chinese exports to Mexico grew 54.0 percent, to 114,190.7 million dollars, a rate that practically doubled the increase in sales of the United States to the Country during the same period, which was 31.3 percent, and that of Canada -the other T-MEC partner- which was 34.1 percent.
Although Mexico is already the main supplier of the US, after dethroning China during 2023, business organizations accuse that the Asian giant has found a way to enter their country through the Mexican border, to evade the tariffs on their products.
At the end of February, the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA), the main bipartisan organization that represents producers and workers of the American Union, pointed out that surely the tariffs of Section 301 of 2018 against China led to a reorganization of their supply chains towards Vietnam and Mexico.
“China has quadrupled its industrial space (in Mexico) to 1.9 million square feet. Of these, 1.1 million are located in northern Mexico, oriented to tax-free trade with the United States,” said its analyst, Kenneth Raposa.
One of the sectors in which there is greater alert is the automotive sector, indicated the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).
“Following the trends in other industries, including steel and aluminum products, production chains oriented around Chinese-owned and affiliated companies are increasingly penetrating the automotive supply chains of North America through Mexico.
“They benefit from the liberal methodology of the T-MEC to calculate the regional content,” said the AAM.
Source: Reforma
