The trade route from China to Mexico soars by 60% in January and is consolidated among the largest in the world

Global container traffic data, compiled by the company Xeneta, support the thesis that Beijing uses the Mexican route as a way to avoid tariffs and restrictions on Chinese products imposed by the United States.
While global trade shows signs of weakening, the shipment of goods from China to Mexico does not stop growing until it is positioned as one of the routes with “the fastest growing trade in the world at this time,” according to the European analysis company of Xeneta data. The demand for containers for trade in this direction increased 59.7% in January compared to the same month in 2023.
Headquartered in Oslo, the company claims to have the world's largest sea and air freight rate benchmarking and market analysis platform. Its chief analyst Peter Sand published a weekly report with the most recent data this Thursday. There, he points out that the demand for containers for maritime shipping went from 73,000 TEU (acronym for Twenty Equivalent Units) in January 2023 to 117,000 TEU in January of this year. “The strength of trade between China and Mexico has been increasing, with an annual growth rate in 2023 of 34.8% compared to only 3.5% in 2022,” says Sand.

The numbers paint a picture that is changing rapidly. In recent years, the United States has imposed tariffs and restrictions on Chinese goods and services with the aim of encouraging companies to leave China to locate in its territory or that of an allied country. A strategy, according to US officials, for national security purposes. Mexico is emerging as an attractive alternative, as it is a middle-income country that pays salaries comparable to those paid in China, is the southern neighbor of the world's largest market and is part of the world's largest trading bloc: the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, USMCA.
This is why Sand interprets in the data a tendency for Chinese companies to triangulate their trade with the US through Mexico to avoid tariffs. US legislators and officials have complained that China is using Mexico as a back door to enter its market, which is why they have asked Mexico to comply with the rules of origin of products exported to the US as established by the USMCA. .
Trade deficit
Two days ago, the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin) warned of a large deficit between Mexico and China. According to the organization, for every dollar that Mexico exported to China in 2018, China sold 11.2 dollars to Mexico; In 2023, for every dollar that Mexico sent, China sent 11.4. Among the most affected sectors are textiles and footwear. For its part, China's largest airline, China Southern, will launch its first direct flight to Mexico City, in a sign that business between both countries is on the rise.
Last year, Mexico became the main country of origin of imports to the United States, dethroning China for the first time in 16 years. “However,” Sand wrote, “given that a sizable portion of these products are likely to be trucked to the US, the possibility arises that China's increased trade with Mexico is being used to circumvent tariffs imposed on imports from China to the US as part of the ongoing trade war.”
In August of last year, Mexico modified its import tax law to place tariffs on products from countries with which it does not have a free trade agreement, including China. This was done to protect the national industry, according to the Ministry of Economy, and in line with the messages that the White House has been sending to Mexico in recent years about its trade with “third countries” that are not part of the trade bloc. North American.

Source: EL PAÍS newspaper