Mexico has become the United States’ largest trading partner, overtaking China for the first time in twenty years. These data, published on Wednesday, February 7, by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, immediately raised two very political questions across the Atlantic. Is the decoupling of the American economy from China underway, in particular thanks to the massive customs duties imposed by Donald Trump in 2018 and maintained by Joe Biden? The strategy of relocating production to allied or friendly countries, the friendshoring, does it work? In fact, the matter is a little more complicated: Chinese products now pass through Mexico to enter the United States.
Let’s start with the trade deficit figures revealed on February 7. From 862 billion dollars (800 billion euros) under the mandate of Donald Trump, it fell, after two record years, from 1,183 billion dollars to 1,061 billion dollars in 2023. This clear decline is in partly due to the fact that American consumers have stopped rushing towards consumer goods, as they did after the Covid-19 pandemic, to buy services (tourism, leisure, catering), produced more heavily in the States -United.
That’s not all: scalded by supply disruptions during the pandemic, American companies, which had increased precautionary purchases in 2022, destocked in 2023. Finally, the United States purchased less oil from ‘stranger. Result: American imports fell by around 160 billion dollars, to 3,112 billion dollars, while American exports fell by only 39 billion, to 2,050 billion.
Avoid customs sanctions
Most of the improvement in the trade balance is explained by the drop in the deficit with China, from $382 billion in 2022 – a historic record – to $279 billion, its lowest level since 2010. “Joe Biden is winning the trade war with China, judging by his rival Donald Trump’s preferred measure [à savoir le déficit commercial]. The catch: It’s an increasingly flawed measure of the world’s most important economic relationship.comments the Bloomberg agency.
To understand this, it is necessary to look at the evolution of trade with Canada and Mexico, which are part of a free trade agreement with the United States. Donald Trump renegotiated this agreement, ensuring that, thanks to this, products sold in the United States would be more widely manufactured on the North American continent. Since then, the deficit has continued to widen with Mexico: it reached 150 billion dollars in 2023 – compared to 95 billion under the mandate of the Republican billionaire. Imports (475 billion in 2023) increased by 40%.
You have 55% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.