The Mexican Council for Foreign Trade, Investment, and Technology (COMCE) projected that Mexico will increase its exports to the United States due to its projected tariff advantage compared to other supplier countries.
According to COMCE estimates based on information from the Yale Budget Lab, Mexico will increase its share of imports to the United States from 16.4 to 19% over the next three years, comparing 2025 with 2028.
For its part, Canada will increase its market share from 13 to 17%, China will decrease its share from 14 to 8%, and the rest of the world will decrease its share from 58 to 56%.
Consequently, although Mexico would remain the leading supplier, its growth would be lower compared to Canada’s.
In this context, Sergio Contreras, executive president of COMCE, emphasized that Mexico maintains a strategic and resilient position in its trade with the United States, even in the face of a tariff environment that has reached its highest levels in more than 90 years.
Contreras emphasized that Mexico currently has the lowest tariff rate among the three main external suppliers to the United States and is one of the countries with the lowest impact on GDP due to tariffs.
Mexico has the lowest effective tariff rate of the three main exporters of products to the United States, according to data from the Yale Budget Lab as of August 6, 2025.
The rate charged by US customs to Mexico is 10.6%, lower than that of Canada (13.1%) and China (27.9%). Regarding the rest of the world, the average tariff rate is 15.6%.
Contreras explained that Canada has borne the brunt of the damage caused by the US tariffs, with a 2.5% long-term contraction in real terms (reflecting both the US tariffs and the Canadian retaliatory measures in place). The impact on China’s economy will be a 0.2% decline.
In contrast, the tariffs would have a positive effect on Mexico’s economy of 0.09 percentage points greater in the long term, comparable to the effect in the European Union.
For Contreras, this indicates that current conditions, far from slowing the national economy, could actually benefit it, thanks to its position in the regional production chain and the preferences of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The only country with a better performance is the United Kingdom, with projected economic growth of 0.2% as a result of the tariffs, thanks in part to the benefits of its trade agreement with the United States.
Regarding the USMCA review, Contreras mentioned that Mexico will enter the renegotiation in 2026 with three key advantages: being the main essential supplier to the US industrial and manufacturing system, the number one market for the country’s main agricultural exports, and also having a strategic position that allows it to sit at the table on equal terms with the United States.
“We have figures that support that the US economy and industry need the Mexican economy to compete successfully in global markets. No other country shares these strengths; it is time to recognize and capitalize on them in a peer review,” he stated.
The CEO of Comce emphasized that this relative advantage does not imply an absence of risks. “The volatility in US trade policy forces Mexico and Mexican companies to strengthen market diversification, optimize their value chains, and strictly comply with rules of origin and international standards to fully take advantage of the framework provided by the USMCA,” he concluded.
Source: eleconomista
