Trade and investment complete this economic structure by including measures to facilitate bilateral exchange and promote the arrival of capital, with special attention to small and medium-sized businesses. The goal is to reduce barriers, improve regulatory coordination and expand business participation in both markets. Added to these actions are initiatives for joint economic promotion and the digitalization of logistics and commercial processes, aimed at strengthening the efficiency of production chains.
In innovation, Canada and Mexico take a first step with the commitment to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen collaboration in research. The agreement will involve the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation of Mexico, and must be finalized before March 31, 2026.
This memorandum seeks to expand scientific cooperation and promote joint projects in strategic interdisciplinary areas, such as the energy transition, artificial intelligence and health technologies.
Agriculture is also part of this redesign. Mexico and Canada propose joint action in agri-food to strengthen productive chains, facilitate food trade and advance sanitary and phytosanitary cooperation. This front gains strategic weight at a time when agricultural trade once again occupies a central place in trade disputes and negotiations.
The change is evident when compared to the Mexico-Canada Action Plan, which was agreed upon in the administrations of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and former prime minister Justin Trudeau. At that time, trade and investment figured within a broader agenda dominated by social issues, human mobility, gender, reconciliation with indigenous peoples, health and environmental cooperation. The economy was present, but it did not set the course or have specific objectives in logistics and energy infrastructure, as is the case now.
This change in focus coincides with a complex stage for Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney has defended that Ottawa’s recent decisions regarding China are in line with the obligations assumed under the trade agreement with the United States and Mexico. The agreement, he recalled, prevents signing free trade agreements with non-market-based economies without prior notification. His government, he stressed, has no intention of doing so with China or any other economy of that type.
