A truck carries new vehicles on the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego. (Ariana Drehsler/Bloomberg)
Mexico wants a greater proportion of each auto built in the country to qualify for U.S. origin status, a move that would lower the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, Deputy Economy Minister for Foreign Trade Luis Rosendo Gutierrez said.
Confronting 25% tariffs on a wide range of products, Latin America’s second-largest economy is moving quickly to protect its vehicle shipments to the U.S., one of its most important exports under the regional free trade agreement that includes the U.S. and Canada.
“When it comes to autos, we’re looking for some aspects within the production process to be considered to increase the American content and increase the deduction” under the existing tariff regime, Gutierrez said April 10 at Bloomberg Insights and Innovation Summit in Mexico City.
Gutierrez predicted that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement Trump signed in his first term would be strengthened but said Mexico wants to have a more effective dispute-resolution process established. He had previously said that the 2026 review process for the deal — known as the USMCA — may be sped up under Trump.
“We’re going to continue seeing tariffs in the coming years, and we will have to accustom ourselves to a model where the most important thing is not having a 0% tariff, but having the lowest tariff in the market, or in comparison to other countries. That’s what our country is managing to do each day,” he said.
