2026 is a decisive year for North America

The year 2026 will be a decisive one for North American families. We have an opportunity to take advantage of the USMCA review to enhance our joint resilience and boost our shared competitiveness for the benefit of our peoples.

Renewing the USMCA for another 16 years would send an unequivocal signal to the rest of the world that North America is united and ready to outcompete all other regions.

As important as the review is for Mexico, it is critical to ensure that the U.S. public and decisionmakers appreciate the importance of the agreement for U.S. competitiveness and economic security.

First, Mexico is the single most important market for US exports

• In 2025, Mexico bought $337 billion of U.S. goods (15.5% of total U.S. exports).
• Mexico is the #1 market for 27 U.S. industries, including meat and livestock, dairy, grains, sugar, oil and gas, chemicals, plastics, textiles, and auto parts.
• Mexico is the #1 buyer of U.S. steel and aluminum products: Mexican demand strengthens the U.S. industrial base in these critical sectors.
• Mexico is also the first or second destination for exports from 26 U.S. states.¹

Therefore, it is not surprising that U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico sustains over 13 million American jobs.²

Second, Mexican exports also sustain jobs in the US

No U.S. trading partner incorporates more U.S. inputs and materials into their exports than Mexico.³ This occurs across several sectors in manufacturing, most prominently in the automotive industry.

• When a car manufactured in Mexico is exported to the U.S., it will likely substitute a car assembled in Europe or Asia. This generates jobs in the U.S. since assembled vehicles in Mexico have on average 35% of U.S. auto parts content, while cars assembled in Europe or Asia contain mainly European and Asian parts.⁴
• In 2025, U.S. auto part exports to Mexico were eight times higher than those to Japan or to Germany.⁵ This reflects the advantages of geographic proximity, which facilitates co-production. Intermediate goods routinely cross borders multiple times for successive stages of transformation before becoming final products.

Furthermore, 59% of all Mexican exports to the U.S. are intermediate goods, which are used by American manufacturers in their industrial production.⁶ They all have important U.S. content, from natural gas to iron ore, coal, petrochemicals, and many others. Not long ago, many of these inputs came from Asia.

Every dollar Mexican manufacturers export to the U.S., sustains U.S. export jobs. This key fact must be accounted for when comparing the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico to U.S. trade imbalances with other countries.

Trading with Mexico is a crucial component for the U.S. to successfully compete with non-market economies, while creating jobs in America.

Third, trade in North America is complementary, contributing decisively to the affordability of goods, on both sides of the border

A great example is North American agriculture: U.S. consumers benefit from affordable and high quality fresh fruits and vegetables year-round, while Mexican cattle and livestock producers rely on U.S. grains for their competitiveness.

This illustrates how successful the USMCA has been.

But there are more opportunities for North America to jointly address supply chain weaknesses to create a more resilient production ecosystem. A good example is the semiconductor industry.

• The U.S. is launching an unprecedented effort to manufacture circuits on silicon wafers. The amount of $2.3 trillion is expected to be invested in the U.S. over an eight-year period (2024-2032 (SIA)). But over 80% of global Assembly, Testing, and Packaging (ATP) capacity is concentrated in Asia, creating a major vulnerability for North American semiconductors supply chains.⁷
• The ATP processes transform semiconductor wafers into usable products, from phones to medical devices. The $100 billion electronics assembly and manufacturing base in Mexico has promoted a growing and cost-effective ATP industry, focused on older generation chips.
• Mexico is ideally positioned to strengthen North American semiconductor resiliency by hosting ATP facilities for mature node chips—which require more labor and less capital.

As we embark upon the review, the Mexican private sector believes four guiding principles will result in a stronger USMCA:

1. Duty-free access for all goods that comply with the USMCA rules of origin, including goods subject to Section 232 duties.
2. Ensure that USMCA rules of origin promote regional integration, maximize North America’s complementarities, and avoid discrimination among the three countries.
3. Leverage USMCA committees to promote ambitious regulatory convergence, particularly in industrial sectors critical for the competitiveness of the region.
4. Strengthen dispute settlement mechanisms to ensure timely enforcement of the obligations of the agreement.