José Rogelio Garza Garza, executive president of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association (AMIA), stated that 2026 will be a complicated year for manufacturers because they are in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s tariff and trade policies.
“2026 will be a very complicated year and it is not new, even the Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, has said so,” he said.
He recalled that the automotive industry is one of the five sectors in which the United States government has a special interest: “The automotive, steel, and aluminum industries are those in which they have a special interest, so it will be a difficult and complicated negotiation (of the USMCA).
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”Mexico, the United States and Canada reviewed the role of the automotive industry previously in the negotiation of trade agreements, such as NAFTA and USMCA, and “we have moved forward and we have to see what is coming,” he stated.
“We are a linked, merged and complementary sector for the United States,” he noted.
55 percent of automobiles sold in the United States are manufactured by companies with operations in that nation, while 17 percent of vehicles by US agencies are manufactured in Mexico, according to AMIA figures.
Mexico sells more cars to the United States than South Korea, Germany and Canada, said the representative of the automakers, who shipped more than 2 million units to US territory in 2025.
He said that the review of TMEC and the 232 tariffs will govern the movement and performance of the automotive industry in 2026.
The direction of the industry will depend on when the USMCA review will end and what tariffs will be removed from car exports from Mexico to the United States.
“Our proposal is clear, since we come from zero percent tariffs and free trade and that is what we need. The objective is to return to zero percent, which we had for the automotive industry,” he said.
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He trusted that there will be support from the Ministry of Economy for an improvement in 232 rates, as well as a discount on rates for North American auto parts.
“As an industry we are not preparing for the review of the USMCA, so we have to see how we support the Mexican government so that there is a better start to the review and a lower tariff,” he concluded.
