Mexico gains ground in US imports
In this context, Mexico not only resisted the slowdown, but gained ground. The participation of the Mexican imports within the total of United States foreign purchases rose to 17.7% in Octoberthe highest proportion recorded for any country in a single month.
In the accumulated of 2025, Mexico consolidated itself as the main supplier of goods to the United Stateswith imports for 447,998 million dollars, equivalent to 15.6% of the total, above Canada and China.
The dynamism was concentrated in non-automotive sectors
According to Banco Base, between January and November 2025, non-automotive manufacturing exports grew 16.1%, while automotive exports accumulated a drop of 4.6%, affected by sectoral tariffs imposed by the United States.
Within sales to the United States, chapter 84 stood out—reactors, boilers, machinery and equipment—driven by the strong increase in exports of computer equipment, which grew more than 80% annually in the accumulated year.
If exports grow, why does GDP remain stagnant?
The gap between both export engines has widened steadily. Since 2023, non-automotive exports have maintained double-digit growth rates, while automotive exports went from stagnation to clearly negative territory in 2024 and 2025.
By November of this year, the former were growing close to 24% annually, compared to a contraction close to 1% in automotive companies, according to official foreign trade figures.
However, this export boom has not translated into greater domestic economic growth. Mexico’s GDP fell 0.3% quarterly in the third quarter of 2025 and advanced just 0.4% in the first nine months of the year, reflecting the weakness of secondary activities, particularly manufacturing, which fell 2.7% annually.
The growth of non-automotive exports in Mexico has not translated into a greater boost to GDP because they generate little internal added value, explained Enrique Covarrubias, director of economic analysis at Actinver. During the conference, he pointed out that a good part of these external sales – such as computers, electronics and electrical equipment – are concentrated in the final stages of assembly and use a high content of imported inputs, which limits their multiplier effect on the economy.
Covarrubias contrasted this performance with that of the automotive industry, which has a deeper and more diversified production chain within the country, made up of auto parts, metalworking, logistics and services.
For this reason, he added, each dollar exported by the automotive sector has a greater impact on growth, investment and formal employment, which explains why its stagnation since 2022 weighs more on GDP than the dynamism observed in other manufacturing segments.
Chips take advantage of tariff advantage
Chapter 84 exports paid a low tariff of 3.50% in September, according to an analysis by Banco Base. Within this chapter, the products whose exports show the greatest growth are data processing units such as memory units, central processing units (CPU) and microprocessors (chips), which in the first nine months of 2025 accumulate an annual growth of 83.39%.
According to the analysis presented by Actinver, the rise of non-automotive exports does reflect the commercial rearrangement of the United States and the advance of nearshoring, but as long as Mexico does not increase the national content and productive integration of these sectors, its capacity to replace the automotive industry as an economic engine will continue to be limited. The challenge, the firm stressed, is not to export more, but to retain a greater proportion of the value generated in global chains.
While the United States imports more and more computers, electronics and machinery assembled in Mexico – with low average tariffs, close to 4.6% – the Mexican economy continues to depend on an automotive sector that represents close to 24% of manufacturing and whose weakness drags investment, employment and industrial production.
Thus, the country exports more, diversifies its basket and gains participation in global trade, but without yet achieving that this change is fully reflected in GDP growth.
