M
exico requires opening its arms to the world and diversify its trade relations, we said in our previous collaboration, but that does not mean downplaying the importance of our country’s main international instrument, the T-MEC, a trade agreement with many flaws and missteps of origin, but a scheme that has been extremely positive for the three parties, since the three countries, Mexico, the United States and Canada, to varying degrees, have gained.
The cold figures, not the subjective assessments, reveal it: under the protection of the NAFTA, today T-MEC, trade between Mexico and its two trading partners has grown exponentially over the past 31 years. From 1994 to date, the volume of trade between our country and the United States went from 82 billion dollars to 840 billion, an increase of more than 1,000 percent. Mexican exports to the United States were $506 billion, 6 percent more than in 2023, while U.S. imports from Mexico totaled $334 billion, an increase of 3 percent. For the United States, trade with Mexico represented 15.8 percent of its total trade in 2024, surpassing Canada and China.
While the exchange of goods and services between Mexico and Canada has increased more than 800 percent since 1994. In 2024, bilateral trade between our countries reached almost 56 billion Canadian dollars (CAD). Exports from Mexico to Canada amounted to 18,856 million USD; while Mexican imports from Canada were 12,263 million USD.
The T-MEC is the largest regional market in the world, representing almost 30 percent of the global economy and more than 20 percent of global exports. It covers a free trade zone of more than 510 million people and a nominal GDP of around 30,997 billion dollars, which puts it at the forefront of other economic blocks such as the Pacific Alliance, ASEAN and the European Union. In 2024, the volume of trade between North American countries reached 1.6 trillion dollars, which represents a growth of 1.3 percent compared to the previous year.
In 2024, sectors linked to trade in goods – including manufacturing industries, wholesale trade, transportation and storage, as well as financial and insurance services – generated 56.2 million jobs (Inegi, US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Statistics Canada). Additionally, more than 10 million jobs depend directly on exports of goods (Brookings).
The trade agreement, which gradually eliminated tariffs on most products, brought with it important opportunities for investment, growth, job creation, greater competitiveness and development of export-oriented sectors of the economy.
It is important to keep this in mind because once the preliminary bilateral review of the United States and Canada is completed, prior trilateral consultations will begin this month, towards formal negotiation, and there are protectionist sectors that have not appreciated the benefits of this trade agreement. There are sectors that, for example, in their anti-immigrant xenophobia claim that the USMCA has closed sources of employment in the manufacturing industry in some regions of the United States, when it is artificial intelligence that is modifying labor processes around the world.
Contrary to these versions, the only way for the United States to remain the world’s leading economy, in volume and dynamism, is for ties to be strengthened and the production chains between the three economies to become more efficient, to gain competitiveness against other economic blocks, especially against China, the main exogenous threat to US supremacy.
Therefore, it is necessary for all parties to join in an effective negotiation that preserves the T-MEC, as more than 200 executives of the main US companies have already suggested, since it depends on maintaining the value chains and international competitiveness of their corporate firms, including Walmart, General Motors, Ford Motors, PepsiCo, Pfizer and other significant operations in Mexico and Canada, who benefit from the stable commercial environment provided by the trilateral treaty. These companies have also formally requested the US government to eliminate the tariffs imposed this year on Mexico and Canada.
The T-MEC, we have always said, is a topic of chiaroscuro for Mexico. We cannot fail to mention, as one of its great liabilities and distortions, the fact that it does not have any clause that contemplates, unlike other economic blocks with the European Union, the free movement of people, or at least that contemplates immigration facilities for a stable, certain and dignified temporary stay for the productive Mexican workers who, with their effort and talent, have built the foundations of the largest economy in the world, especially in states like California, Texas and Florida, with a GDP that exceeds that of several countries. Europeans.
However, there is much more that the three countries can gain than they would leave behind. With defense of sovereignty and openness to new realities, the T-MEC must continue to support the economies of Mexico, the United States and Canada.
