The Sheinbaum administration will erect a tariff wall on more than 1,400 Asian products while seeking to preserve the USMCA, the trade agreement that protects more than $800 billion in U.S.-Mexico trade annually. The discussion and upcoming approval of the increase in customs duties on imports from countries such as China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, among others, implicitly implies a gesture of alignment with the protectionist measures of the United States, Mexico’s main trading partner. These measures also represent a solution by the Mexican government to the need to increase tax collection. The new rates would leave some $52 billion in state coffers, according to the Center for the Study of Public Finance, an amount that would help ease the slowing economy.
The proposal will be submitted for discussion this Monday to the Economy Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, with the intention of being approved immediately in plenary session. The proposed text includes customs duties ranging from 7% to 50% on products in the automotive, textile, clothing, plastic, steel, household appliances, aluminum, toys, furniture, shoes, leather goods, paper and cardboard, motorcycles, trailers, glass, soaps, perfumes and cosmetics sectors, from countries without a free trade agreement with Mexico. After a series of working groups with the Mexican business community, the legislature reduced some rates, compared to the executive’s initial proposal, which envisaged a 50% start for the vast majority of goods. Manufacturers warned during this dialogue with legislators that a radical increase in taxes on these thousands of products would produce a negative impact on business costs and a supply problem for certain products that Mexico does not produce.
At the center of the debate, the revision of the USMCA is also planned, given the constant questions from the United States to maintain this trade agreement. Under the protection of the agreement, which will face its biggest review in July 2026, Mexico sends more than 80% of its exports to the northern country. The river of binational trade has continued to grow this year, even despite the tariffs that Washington imposed on Mexico on steel, aluminum, copper, automobiles and products outside the USMCA.
Latin America’s second largest economy arrives at the doors of this negotiation in difficult times, with a decelerating GDP and a drop in public and private investment figures. Calculating the revenue impact of a new tariff wall on Asian products is therefore not a minor issue. The effects it will have on the finances of the Sheinbaum administration are one of the attractions of the proposal, sources close to the presidency say, even if the official objective, according to the project, is to find a balance between Mexican industry and external competition. Imposing taxes on imports, according to the government’s approach, can boost local production, encourage substitution of foreign products and strengthen domestic value chains.
Mexico imports more than $129 billion a year from China, but only exports just under $9 billion to the Asian giant. Tackling this pronounced trade imbalance has been a key flag in Sheinbaum’s pledge to roll out a thousand tariffs on textiles, auto parts, steel and other products imported from Asia. However, industry and experts warn that abrupt implementation of tariffs would also lead to escalating costs and a loss of competitiveness for Mexican companies.
Adolfo Laborde, international trade expert at CIDE, emphasizes that, although this wave of customs tariffs aligns with American trade strategy and the regional integration of North America, it will also represent another challenge for the local productive sector which, starting next year, will have to adjust its costs upwards due to these new tariffs or look for other suppliers. “There will be an increase in prices and there will be a challenge to find a series of suppliers of these materials, which were previously covered by countries like China, in some cases. For example, we can think of Japan, however, this will mean an increase in costs because it is a more expensive country”, he indicates.
The impact that the new collection measures will bring will hit the pockets of citizens. “Tariffs are paid by national consumers and represent, under certain conditions, a transfer of resources to the government and producers”, is one of the reflections that the Center for Financial Studies has put at the heart of the debate. The body dependent on the Lower House recommended that the application of these measures be temporary and calibrated to moderate their effect on the rise in prices and not to discourage internal and external investments.
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