{"id":216471,"date":"2025-09-10T21:09:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216471\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T21:09:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T21:09:13","slug":"mexico-to-slap-50-tariff-on-chinese-cars-under-us-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216471\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico to slap 50% tariff on Chinese cars under US pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mexico is slapping a 50 per cent tariff on Chinese cars, in a blow to Beijing as its biggest auto buyer tries to preserve a free trade deal with the United States.<\/p>\n

Washington has put heavy pressure on Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to stamp out Beijing\u2019s growing influence in the country\u2019s economy, which has recorded a years-long climb in Chinese imports and investment.<\/p>\n

The measure is buried in a list of tariffs proposed in a draft bill to congress on roughly 1,400 products, from textiles to steel, that will apply to all countries with which Mexico does not have a trade deal. But Chinese cars were by far the biggest import affected by the tariffs, said Gabriela Siller, chief economist at Banco Base. <\/p>\n

The 50 per cent levy \u2014 more than double the current 15-20 per cent \u2014 was the maximum allowed under World Trade Organization rules, experts said, showing how much of a priority US concerns were.<\/p>\n

Mexico was the world\u2019s biggest buyer of Chinese-made cars, according to data<\/a> from Shanghai consultancy Automobility, ahead of the United Arab Emirates and Russia in the first half of this year.<\/p>\n

The Latin American country, which is the US\u2019s biggest trading partner, is one of the countries most vulnerable to Trump\u2019s upheaval of the global economy \u2014 and under heavy pressure from the US president on areas from security to migration.<\/p>\n

North America\u2019s free trade deal, a 500-million-person trade bloc accounting for 30 per cent of global GDP, gives Mexico privileged access to the US. Almost 90 per cent of its exports to the US are currently going tariff-free, a competitive advantage Sheinbaum is determined to preserve.<\/p>\n

The deal is up for review next year and one of the top US complaints has been China using Mexico as a \u201cbackdoor\u201d for goods to circumvent high US tariffs.<\/p>\n

The tariffs were \u201ca huge jump\u201d from current levels, and a signal that Mexican trade policy may no longer prioritise competitively-priced inputs for manufacturers, former deputy economy minister Juan Carlos Baker said on local radio on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s embassy in Mexico did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

While prioritising Washington, Sheinbaum has been careful to not completely alienate Beijing, which has support in parts of her left-wing coalition. She briefly met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 in Rio last year, and, on Wednesday, she spun the tariffs as part of her broader \u201cPlan Mexico\u201d to reduce imports and produce more at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the objective? Strengthening national production,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Siller said the measures would raise some tax revenue and help please President Donald Trump, but could also push up prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously everything has a cost, and the cost of this will be higher costs and greater inflationary pressures,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-216471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115182053948026996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}