Increasing trade tensions between the U.S. and China have led to a substantial increase in container imports from China into Mexico.
According to a report from logistics intelligence company Vesselbot, twenty-foot-equivalent (TEU) container volumes from China into Mexico increased by more than 61% between January and June of 2024, in addition to a 64% year-over-year increase in January.
“This sharp change has sparked concerns that Mexico might be acting as an alternative for Chinese goods to enter the U.S., bypassing the high tariffs imposed as part of the trade conflict between the U.S. and China,” Vesselbot’s report reads.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump imposed 30-50% tariffs on Chinese-made washing machines and solar panels, followed by additional levies on steel, aluminum and a variety of consumer goods. President Biden has largely kept those measures intact, while adding new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, batteries, ship-to-shore cranes and medical products, and boosting existing tariffs on steel, aluminum and solar cells.
Vesselbot’s data shows that,
between 2023 and 2024, Mexico’s Manzanillo Ensenada and Lazara Cardenas ports, the shipping hubs that handle a large portion of the country’s imports from China,
have seen record-breaking container volumes. At Manzanillo, TEU import volumes from China increased by 40% between January and June 2024, while Lazaro Cardenas saw a 200% increase over that same period. Vesselbot also tracked what it describes as a “massive” drop in containerized exports from China to the U.S. within that same period, dipping by roughly 18% between January and February.
In July, the U.S. attempted to close that loophole, with Biden imposing 10-25% tariffs on Mexican-imported steel and aluminum that was melted or poured in another country. Even so, those levies didn’t cover other Chinese products being routed through Mexico that would otherwise be subjected to tariffs if they were imported directly from China into the U.S.