China, South Korea, India and Thailand, nations to which Mexico imposed a tariff to protect the sources of employment in the Mexican automotive industry, sold more than 5,194 million dollars between January and July 2025.
From January to July 2025, the imports of Chinese cars increased more than 6.75 percent, despite the imposition of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo tariffs, president of Mexico, and Donald Trump, president of the United States.
Mexico imported 3,626 million dollars of cars for 7 months of the year compared to the 3,397 million dollars of the same period of 2024, the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) revealed.
China is the one that sells the most vehicles and is only overcome by adding the imports of car in the United States and Europe.
Chinese brands have managed to position themselves in electric vehicles and cars in Mexico, thanks to technological advances and low prices, which aroused a concern in the Government of Claudia Sheinbaum, who seeks to control their arrival and defend the automotive industry with tariffs.
Mexico proposed to charge a 50 percent tariff to light cars imported from China, South Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia and Turkey.
The Ministry of Economy (Se) sent a few days ago to Congress an initiative entitled “Protection Program for the Strategic Industries of Mexico”, which contemplates the imposition of tariffs to various countries with which there is no commercial agreement (mainly of the Asian continent), with the objective of protecting 19 strategic sectors of the national industry and strengthening the commercial balance of the country, in line with the provisions of the established in the Mexico Plan.
Mexico made a consultation and listened to any country that feels, at a given time, affected by a tariff decision that is not considered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Economy (SE) said.
The Government of Mexico is listening to China, South Korea, India, Thailand and other countries that tariffs were imposed to “see what their arguments are and expose ours,” said the official at the time.
The argument presented by the Ministry of Economy focuses that from 2020 to 2024 the deficit of Mexico, South Korea, India and Thailand grew 83 percent.
“And that resulted, as a consequence, in our country the loss of jobs in several sectors, for example in the textile industry and footwear are 130 thousand jobs,” Ebrard said.
“I estimate that the automotive industry could be at risk (to get lost), if this trend continues (commercial with China, South Korea, India and Thailand), of the order of 320 thousand jobs,” he said then.
The United States is the second car seller to Mexico with 2,460 million dollars, in third place is Europe with 1,453 million dollars and in fourth place Japan appears with 900 million dollars, according to data from El Banco de México.
Canada sold 250 million dollars to Mexico in the first 7 months of this year, while Brazil imported 203 million 680 thousand dollars in the same period, according to the Central Bank.
The imports and exports of Mexico with the United States, Canada, Japan, the European Union and Brazil are governed with treaties and other trade agreements that allow not to collect tariffs.
With these countries there are no commercial agreements or treaties and the activity still continues.
India sold 704 million dollars of light cars to Mexico, Indonesia brought 481 million dollars of vehicles to the national market, as well as South Korea introduced 254 million dollars of units and Thailand commercialized 127 million dollars from January to July 2025.
“Although, the measure (tariff) does not yet come into force, the announcement has been interpreted as a position aligned with Trump’s protectionist policy and as a sign that Mexico will prioritize the TMEC,” says Janneth Quiroz Zamora, director of Economic Analysis, Exchange and Survey of Grupo Financiero Monex.
The tariff package launched by Mexico will mainly impact China, a country with which the president of the United States initiated a commercial war 8 years ago to reduce dependence on Chinese goods, recalls the economy.
“By not having a commercial agreement with Mexico, imports from the Asian country would be subject to the proposed tariffs, which would initially significantly affect the Mexican importing sector,” he said.
Autos continue to arrive in Mexican Puerto
The Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) calculated that almost 20 percent increased imports of light vehicles to the port of Lázaro Cardenás from China, South Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey and Japan.
From January to August 2025, the port of Lázaro Cárdenas received more than 344 thousand 947 vehicles, when last year they landed more 287 thousand 872 vehicles.
Coming from Asia, more than 108 thousand 500 cars entered through the port of Mazatlan, from Europe there were more than 175 thousand 255 vehicles through the Veracruz port terminal. And through Altamira 7 thousand 409 vehicles and 3,284 cars were received in Tuxpan.
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