JAMA groups 14 manufacturers, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Suzuki, Isuzu, Hino, Daihatsu, Yamaha and Kawasaki.
The sector’s position avoids hierarchies and emphasizes that its trinational network does not diminish the role of the United States, it strengthens it. 25 plants operate in that country, 12 in Mexico and 5 in Canada. These are facilities for vehicles, engines, transmissions, parts and batteries that support a chain that constantly crosses borders.
Mexican and Canadian operations reduce costs, increase efficiencies and sustain the viability of new investments in the United States, where accumulated investment is around $66 billion.
Engines assembled in Ohio reach lines in Guanajuato or Ontario, while transmissions and parts manufactured in Mexico and Canada support American assembly. The T-MEC created the tariff-free zone that made it possible to plan long-term investments and maintain affordable prices for consumers pressured by inflation and the cost of credit.
JAMA says its business model requires manufacturing close to where they sell. Around 75% of the vehicles sold in the United States are assembled within North America and half come directly from American plants. Units that are not sold there are moved to Mexico and Canada.
The association also highlights new bets in the United States on electrification. Toyota opened its battery plant in North Carolina, Honda is advancing its joint facility with LG Energy Solution in Ohio, and Isuzu is building a truck factory in South Carolina, but these investments depend on clear rules and regional coordination.
JAMA maintains that the permanence of the T-MEC protects the value of Japanese investment in the region and maintains North America as a global reference automotive platform.
T-MEC maintains affordable prices
On the other hand, dealers of international brands, grouped in the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA), also sent their comments to the USTR, in which they emphasize that integration with Mexico and Canada is essential to keep vehicle prices under control and avoid an affordability crisis that is already putting pressure on millions of families.
By strengthening regional manufacturing, the T-MEC helps reduce price spikes and maintains a more stable supply, a point that the association considers decisive at a time when purchasing a new car is close to a luxury.
The warning comes with figures that portray the size of the problem of tariffs that are already applied to the sector. The average price of a new vehicle surpassed $50,000 for the first time in September 2025. The monthly payment is around $800.
According to the Center for Automotive Research, tariffs will cost manufacturers an average of $4,600 per vehicle by 2027 and put 3.9 million sales at risk over the next three years.
AIADA emphasizes that these impacts would not only reach assembly plants. They would be felt in the dealerships, where each drop in sales means fewer hiring, reductions in hours and a slowdown in community support.
US union complains about Mexico
The United States Automotive Union (UAW) accuses Mexico of maintaining depressed wages, failing to meet labor obligations under the agreement and fueling a structure that, it claims, encourages plant closures in the United States and shifts jobs to poverty-wage facilities south of the border.
The union maintains that the current dynamic perpetuates an unequal model. In its analysis, it cites the Independent Mexico Labor Expert Board, which concluded that “Mexico is not in compliance with its labor obligations under the USMCA” and that the agreement failed to reduce the wage gap.
It says that while average wages in the United States and Canada have grown steadily since 1991, those in Mexico have remained stagnant for more than two decades.
He also accuses that trade integration favored corporations and not workers. One of the union’s proposals includes the creation of a “North American salary floor” through a sectoral wage floor, that is, defining how much any worker in the sector must earn as a minimum.
Unlike the business sector, for the union the 2026 review cannot be a minor update, but rather a complete rewrite.
