Over seven years of trade war between the United States and China, the main beneficiary has turned out to be Mexico. From 2017 to 2024, its share of total US expenditures grew from 0.8% to 1.06%, while China’s share fell over the same period from 1.25% to 0.95%. In 2023, a symbolic milestone was reached: Mexico overtook China for the first time, becoming the largest trading partner of the United States.
American companies, faced with tariffs on Chinese goods, began looking for alternative suppliers. Mexico, with its geographic proximity, developed industrial infrastructure, and preferential treatment under the USMCA emerged as the obvious choice. The effect played out in two waves. The first was direct import substitution: US demand shifted from Chinese goods to their Mexican equivalents, adding roughly 0.35 percentage points to Mexico’s GDP growth. The second was an investment wave: once manufacturers understood that this reorientation was structural rather than temporary, they began committing capital to expanding production capacity in Mexico. This second wave added another 0.73 percentage points. The total effect amounts to approximately 1.08 percentage points of GDP growth.
China’s 8.2-point decline in US import share was distributed across several countries. Leading the gains are Vietnam (+2.2 points) and Mexico (+2.1 points), followed by Taiwan (+1.7 points), Ireland (+1.1 points), and Korea (+1.0 points). Canada remained essentially flat at −0.2 points.
Mexico’s rising share is backed by real investment in production capacity and long-term contracts with American corporations. The sectors most integrated into North American value chains: automotive, aerospace, medical devices are posting above-average growth. When manufacturers relocate their capacity, they tend to stay.
