A year after the entry into force of the trade agreement with the United States and Canada (T-MEC), Mexico has managed - despite the pandemic and the decline in global trade in 2020 - to consolidate itself as the leading supplier to the United States market, displacing several months of the last year to China and Canada.

Since its entry into force on July 1, 2020, the T-MEC has been a key element for Mexican growth and to give legal certainty to investments in the country, even despite internal regulatory changes in energy or in the workplace. , which generated complaints among the productive areas of the three countries; However, it still presents important challenges to exploit its maximum potential, agree experts interviewed by MILENIO.

The former chief negotiator of the T-MEC, Kenneth Smith Ramos, considered that due to the T-MEC Mexico remains the first trade partner of the US. He explained that “it is precisely thanks to the continuity that within the agreement there is a zero tariff environment”, since China and even European or Central American entities face higher tariffs than those of Mexico when entering the US market.

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The ambassador of the Mexican Foreign Service, and former negotiator of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Miguel Ruíz-Cabañas, considered that "the greatest success is the very existence of the T-MEC." It should be remembered, he recalled, that in 2017 President Donald Trump was minutes away from announcing the US's exit from NAFTA, “that would have derailed many things, and two, a framework of trust is being created from what I see in the announcements of governments, how to work together towards the objectives ”.

According to data from the US Census Bureau, from January to April the total trade in goods between that country and Mexico totaled 208 thousand 642 million dollars, an increase of 19 percent compared to 2020, and presented a surplus historic of 35 thousand 449 million dollars, and with this it remains so far this year as the first US commercial partner.

For Smith Ramos, despite the crisis due to the pandemic, “the trade figures are positive between Mexico and the United States, and that sends the signal that the T-MEC is working, that is, the free trade environment is generating more trade in North America, but to maximize profits we have to do the job well from a domestic point of view in Mexico. "

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Yesterday, Inegi revealed that in May 2021 Mexico's total foreign trade registered a considerable increase compared to the same month of 2020, where exports grew 125 percent and imports 87 percent, data that were not recorded.

Consult the markets section where you can find the monthly updated reports and observe the behavior of the most important industrial markets in the country monitored by Solili.

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