In his favor he would also play Washington’s need that his neighbor Coopere to stop irregular migration and fentanyl traffic, factors invoked by Trump to raise the rates to Mexico and Canada, his partners in the T-MEC commercial agreement.
Trump accuses those countries and China – also of the commercial war – to do little against both phenomenon.
Even this Saturday he pointed to the Mexican government of having an “alliance” with drug trafficking cartels, which his couple Claudia Sheinbaum crossed out “slander.”
“Existential threat”
The British consultant capital Economics said Saturday that the 25% tariff “represents an existential threat to Canada and Mexico”, whose exports to the United States represent about 20% of their GDP.
According to their projections, rates will mainly punish the automotive and electronic sectors, which allocate 50% of their production to the United States.
Emblem of the T-MEC, the automotive industry exported 36,000 million dollars to the United States in 2023. It represents 5% of Mexican GDP and generates a million jobs, adds the firm.
Capital Economics pointed out that the auto parts will become more expensive, as the borders cross several times during the production process, which would directly affect the pocket of the Americans.
Cars and electronic also cause 30% of the United States investment flows, the largest foreign investor in Mexico.
But the effect on these sectors “would be partially counteracted by a depreciation of the exchange rate, making the most competitive Mexican exports,” says Ramsé Gutiérrez, co -director of investments in Franklin Templeton Mexico.
At the same time, that depreciation “would increase imports, which would lead to an increase in the prices of consumer goods and raw materials in Mexico,” he adds.
Recession
The repercussions would depend on the duration of the measure.
An extended punishment, coupled with the economic contraction of the fourth quarter of 2024 (-0.6%), would lead Mexico to a “technical recession” (two negative growth quarters), Gutiérrez warns.
This could happen from the fourth quarter of 2025, estimates Oxford Economics, which ensures that the sum of tariffs and reprisals would weaken the Mexican weight, also carrying inflation to 6% per year from the current 4.2%.
The Mexican economy, the thirteenth of the world, grew 1.3% in 2024.
“We do not hope there is an agreement soon to withdraw these tariffs, although more sectors can be added to an exception,” Economics considered capital.
In 2023, Mexico registered a surplus of 234,743 million against the United States, due to which Trump ensures that his country is “subsidized to Mexico.”
But commercial logic is more complex.
A good part of the goods that the United States buys are supplies that its companies manufacture in Mexico for lower labor and logistics costs, lowering the final product for Americans.
Thus, a car assembled and sold in the United States has 25% of Mexican components, according to the US road administration agency (NHTSA).
By taxing its largest supplier, Trump’s tariffs would generate inflation, explains Diego Marroquín, trade expert at the American Analysis Center Wilson Center.
“Currency”
For Kenneth Smith, former Mexican official who led in 2020 the renegotiation of the T-MEC (required by Trump), tariffs are the millionaire tool to achieve results in migration or security.
“We already know how it negotiates,” he says.
But that strategy may not be so effective “due to the flexibility of Mexico’s exchange regime, which could neutralize most of the effects and potentially significant retaliation tariffs,” says British Bank Barclays.
