Mexico is working to stall or reduce Trump’s 25% tariff on foreign-made autos. Canada denounced Trump’s executive order but Mexico is taking a more subdued approach.
Facing potential economic fallout from planned U.S. tariffs, Mexican authorities are pushing the White House to exclude Mexican vehicles and car parts from President Trump’s planned 25% levies on automobile imports.
“We don’t want to lose a single job in our country,” a somber President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters at her morning news briefing Thursday. “There is room for talks, for collaboration, for negotiation.”
Mexico is seeking a continuation of the current North American free-trade regimen on auto imports, said Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s minister of the economy.
“If we are moving to a system of such high tariffs, what we have to look for is preferential treatment for Mexico,” said Ebrard, who appeared via video link from Washington, where he has been meeting with senior Trump administration officials. Ebrard said he had already met six times with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, underscoring the crucial importance of the tariff issue for Mexico.
Mexican authorities have also been seeking out U.S. car manufacturers — heavily reliant on Mexican components and assembly — who have also balked at the import taxes and called Trump’s predictions of quickly renewed auto production in the United States unrealistic.
“It’s not so easy to transfer a plant [from Mexico] to the United States,” Sheinbaum noted.
Mexico’s multibillion-dollar vehicle and auto parts manufacturing sectors — overwhelmingly geared toward exports to the United States — represent a crucial axis of the Mexican economy. The industry directly employs more than 1 million people, not including tens of thousands of collateral jobs in transport, logistics and other fields.
The Mexican president, who has maintained what she calls a “cool-headed” approach in contentious, back-and-forth tariff discussions with the Trump administration, said Mexico would not formulate a full response — which could include retaliatory tariffs against U.
