US firms comparable to Basic Motors are additionally among the greatest importers of Chinese language merchandise to Mexico. One in 5 automobiles bought domestically is now made in China — comparable to GM’s well-liked Chevrolet Aveo.
However given the financial menace to the American auto trade and the potential safety danger posed by related autos from China, the massive concern within the US is Chinese language electrical car producers like BYD and Chery establishing in Mexico and promoting better volumes and even attempting to export. Although they’ve scouted states for websites, no manufacturing unit has been introduced but.
“That’s why that received President Trump’s consideration within the marketing campaign,” Pfeiffer says.
The US might see the presence of the automobiles and different Chinese language companies extra broadly — together with telecommunications operator Huawei — as a problem, he says.
“[If] you might have a major proportion of Mexicans or People residing in Mexico driving related Chinese language automobiles, that ultimately turns into a major concern for the US,” he mentioned.
“Most of the issues that the US raised about Huawei would type of go on steroids down the street if large components of the long run tech economic system in Mexico had been dominated by related Chinese language units.”
Mexico is gearing up for volatility as Trump’s second time period approaches.
The US president-elect developed an unlikely bond with Sheinbaum’s populist predecessor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who shared his transactional method to politics.
However a further surprising problem has come from often pleasant Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau and different politicians indicated they had been open to kicking Mexico out of USMCA over issues about China.
Canada’s statements shocked the Mexicans, however Trudeau and his fellow leaders are additionally pondering of their very own autoparts sector earlier than an election in 2025.
Sheinbaum initially responded coldly to Trump’s tariffs menace. Since then, the 2 leaders have spoken and he or she has dedicated to proceed insurance policies that cease migrants reaching the border and mentioned repairing broken safety co-operation.
She has been clear that the US is a precedence however met each President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping on the G20 this yr, in a sign she needs to maintain working with each.
Trump described his call with Sheinbaum as “wonderful”, however the president-elect is but to name off his menace of 25 per cent tariffs and the 2026 overview of USMCA is looming.
Mexico “is sending the fitting messages, I don’t know if that’s going to be sufficient for Donald Trump”, says Baker of Ansley Consultores. “We’re going to have to do that for a very long time.”
Again within the semi-arid desert in Coahuila, hundreds of employees on meeting strains proceed to churn out vans and pick-up vans for export to the US. However the uncertainty across the bilateral relationship is hanging over Alianza and different industrial areas throughout Mexico.
“After the pandemic, with nearshoring, there was an enormous growth in visits, in shoppers trying to arrange,” Alianza’s Cantú says. “Undoubtedly as we speak there’s a calm, a pause available in the market the place a lot of them are evaluating what’s going to occur with the insurance policies or the geopolitics of the US and Asia.”
