Trade Between Mexico and the US Reaches Record of $404 Billion

ByBraulio Carbajal

This article by Braulio Carbajal originally appeared in the July 7, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico City. Between January and May 2026, bilateral trade between Mexico and the United States, that is, the sum of exports and imports, reached a value of $404.6 billion, an unprecedented level for a comparable period, official data reveal.

According to information released this Tuesday by the Census Bureau of the US Department of Commerce, that figure is 13 percent higher than the $359.184 billion reported in the same period of the previous year.

In this way, Mexico remains the largest trading partner of the world’s leading economic power, representing 16.5 percent of its total trade, which in the first five months of the year amounted to $1.8232 trillion.

Below it are Canada, with $307.5 billion, equivalent to 12.5 percent of US trade; China, with $150.1 billion, equal to 6.1 percent; and Taiwan, with $140.8 billion, representing 5.7 percent of US global trade.

As for Mexico’s exports to the US, between this past January and May they had a value of $242.9 billion, a historic record that is also 11 percent higher than the $219.139 billion recorded in the same period last year.

The figure comes just six days after the three USMCA partners held, this past July 1, the virtual meeting provided for in the treaty for its first joint review. At that meeting, the United States refused to automatically renew the agreement for another 16 years, as Mexico and Canada proposed, and instead chose to maintain the current term until 2036 through a scheme of annual reviews over the next decade.

The Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, recently explained that the US decision does not represent a withdrawal from the treaty or immediate changes to the current rules, and confirmed that the third round of bilateral negotiations between Mexico and the United States will take place the week of July 20 in Mexico City.

According to the official, at that table Mexico will bring 13 topics and the United States 14, among them the automotive sector’s rules of origin and the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump’s administration under Section 232.