The commercial relationship between Mexico and the United States is more important today than ever. It is clear that the United States has long been the main trading partner for Mexico, that is, the main destination of our exports and the most important source of our imports. What had never happened was the opposite: that Mexico was the main trading partner for the United States. Well, in 2025, after decades of having strengthened and diversified the trade relationship, today Mexico is finally also the main market for US exports and the most important source of its imports. According to figures recently released by the United States Census Bureau, exports of goods from the United States to Mexico reached 338 billion dollars in 2025, surpassing for the first time exports to Canada (337 billion dollars) and well above those made to other important commercial destinations such as China and the United Kingdom (106 billion and 97 billion dollars, respectively). On the import side, Mexico sold products to the United States for 535 billion dollars, leaving behind Canada (which provided goods for 383 billion dollars), China (306 billion dollars), Taiwan (201 billion dollars) and Japan (146 billion dollars). To put these figures in comparative perspective, it is worth considering the following: the total of exports from the United States to Mexico is greater than all the combined exports that that country makes to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and India, and is just 10 percent higher than total US sales to the entire Eurozone. Regarding imports from Mexico, these exceed the combined total of those from Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Brazil and Israel, and are equivalent to 95 percent of all imports from the Euro Zone. Another way to appreciate the enormous commercial importance between both countries is to note that the volume of total trade (exports plus imports) between the two countries is more than double that which occurred in that same year between the United States and China (873 billion dollars versus 415 billion dollars). On the other hand, Mexico is important for the United States not only because of the volume and value of the products they trade with each other, but also because of the type of trade they carry out. For example, when analyzing trade in advanced technology products (including electronic, aerospace, information and communication, biotechnology, optoelectronic, etc.) products, Mexico stood out in 2025 as the main destination for US exports and as the second supplier of this type of imports to the United States (only behind Taiwan). In fact, the sum of trade between Mexico and the United States in this specific type of products (226 billion dollars) exceeds that between the United States and any other country in the world and is, to cite an interesting comparison, more than double that between China and the United States (106 billion dollars). Regarding the automotive industry (vehicles and auto parts), Mexico also stood out as the main trading partner of the United States in 2025. Mexico is, on the one hand, the main supplier of this type of products (168 billion dollars) and, on the other hand, it is the second most important destination for this type of products (only behind Canada). In the overall volume of trade in this type of products, Mexico is, by far, the most important country for the United States: a total of 208 billion dollars (168 billion dollars of US imports and 40 billion dollars of exports), which compares very favorably against the 109 billion dollars of the second place, which is Canada (57 billion dollars of exports and 52 billion dollars of imports). The importance of Mexican products for the United States in the automotive sector is such that Mexico is the main supplier in each and every one of the three categories reported by the Census Bureau: passenger cars (44 billion dollars), auto parts (81 billion dollars) and buses, trucks and special vehicles (43 billion dollars). In these last two areas, Mexican products are so relevant that they represent, respectively, 44% and 79% of all US imports in 2025. The figures we have presented reveal the growing commercial and strategic importance that Mexico has for the United States. The two countries have become so integrated that they are already two interdependent nations despite the enormous asymmetry that still persists in their levels of development. The economic future of Mexico and the United States is inevitably linked. I am sure that Mexico’s trade negotiators are clear about this. Hopefully this is also on the minds of their American counterparts.
