Mexico‘s exports totaled 44.446.2 billion dollars in January, which implies an increase of 5.5% at annual rate.
Conversely, Mexican imports totaled 49,044.2 million dollars, up 5.9 percent.
Both data refer only to products, not including services, with statistics released by Inegi on Thursday.
Mexico’s exports
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump took office as President of the United States. On his first day, he presented several key points affecting relations with his neighboring country to the south, including Mexico’s exports.
Among them, he highlighted a plan to impose a 25% tariff on all products entering the United States from Canada and Mexico. He also announced an additional 10% tariff on products from China. These measures were to come into effect at the beginning of February 2025, although he then put a pause until March 4 and then another, until April 2, although generating some confusion in this last deferral.
The first deferral was accompanied by a specific agreement for Mexico. This agreement included actions to strengthen border security and reduce illegal migration. It also included measures to combat drug trafficking to the United States.
The definitive exclusion of tariffs to Mexico and Canada will depend on the degree of cooperation that each of these countries achieves with respect to attacking the problems of migration and drug trafficking in the United States, from Trump’s perspective.
Mexican economy
Mexico’s product exports experienced a 4.1% growth in 2024 compared to the previous year. This figure totaled US$617,099.6 million.
The increase exceeded the expectations of the Mexican Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology (Comce), which had projected 3% growth. In addition, the increase was higher than the 2.7% recorded in Mexican foreign sales during 2023.
As for Mexico’s economy, preliminary GDP for the fourth quarter of 2024 showed an annual increase of 0.6 percent. Thus, the Mexican economy closed 2024 with a total expansion of 1.3 percent. The government’s total public sector requirements, the broadest measure of the public deficit, were 5.7 percent of GDP. This figure was below the preliminary estimate of 5.9 percent of GDP.