The accumulated trade deficit with China is $1.1 trillion.

Dora Villanueva

La Jornada newspaper
Monday, July 22, 2024, p. 20

Over the past three decades, Mexico has bought more from China than it has sold to it. In the past 10 years alone, the trade deficit with the Asian economy has soared by 72.7 percent, to a historic deficit of $1.8 trillion, according to data from the Bank of Mexico (BdeM).

Information from the central bank shows how Mexico's trade relationship with the United States and China, the world's two economic superpowers, has evolved.

In 1993, on the cusp of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the country ended up running trade deficits with both the United States and China. The latter had not yet joined the World Trade Organization and was not yet recognized as a global trading giant. At that time, Mexico had a deficit of $2,383 million with the United States and $241 million with China.

After more than three decades, the world trade map has changed. Since 1995, there has not been a year in which trade with the United States did not result in a surplus for Mexico, and in 2023 the value of exports exceeded the value of imports by that country by $234,743 million.

Meanwhile, the deficit with China grew by an annual rate of 22.7 percent, reaching $104,132 million at the end of 2023, a balance significantly larger than that recorded in 1993, according to the trade balance published by the German Bank.

Over the weekend, during an event involving the current Economic Council and the next administration's government, Finance and Public Credit Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O warned that Mexico should review its trade with China, given that the country He sells us and does not buy from us, and this is not a reciprocal trade.He also mentioned some of the measures taken by the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations against Chinese products.

According to experts, these sanctions benefited Mexico, which became the main trading partner of the United States.

Mexico, like all of North America, It needs to produce more than it consumes. We depend heavily on China for basic products for our homes. We are considering changes in investment policy and interest in foreign investment.Ramirez de la O made the announcement after highlighting how the Asian country's participation in global trade has advanced and how North America's has declined.

BdeM data shows that in any given month, over more than three decades, Mexico has sold more to China than it has bought from it. As a result, the historical trade deficit with that country—from January 1993 to May 2024—is $1.189 trillion, the country with which the country has the largest trade gap between imports and exports.

On the contrary, the United States is the country with which Mexico has the largest trade surplus: in historical figures (from January 1993 to May 2024) it amounts to 2 billion 727 thousand 686 million dollars.

A few months ago, Mexico made adjustments to its foreign trade rules to accommodate claims made by industries and the US government regarding alleged triangulation of Chinese trade to take advantage of trade exemptions granted by the T-MEC to US countries that are part of the agreement.

Ramirez de la O has avoided making comments about China with general statements such as: Priority is North America.However, his speech over the weekend was the first in which he directly addressed the lack of reciprocity with the Asian economy.