Countries with whom Mexico currently holds Free Trade Agreements

Source: economia.gob.mx

Sergio Arturo Olliver Martinez Grijalva

Mexico's true economic strength lies not only in its cheap labor, the youth of its population, or in its skilled labour, but in the extent of its commercial relations with the rest of the world.

Although most of Mexico's exports and imports are done with the US, this is due to the geographic proximity, the reality is that trade with the rest of the world has grown steadily since the signing of free trade agreements with the United States.and the other countries.

But this was not always the case, in the 60's until the 90's, Mexico was a closed economy and it was virtually impossible to get quality goods since Mexican companies that fulfilled the needs of the mexican population lacked competition from global companies.

Thus, although there was an immense manufacturing structure of goods, such as clothing, shoes, jewelry, and everything that the Mexicans at the time consumed, these products were generally of very poor quality and marketed at a very high price, generating a secondary black market of the so-called 'fayuca', which was nothing more than imported goods, generally without paying taxes, of a lower price and better quality.

I personally remember that the difference in prices on items sold on both sides of the border such as Levi's jeans, in Mexico they could cost upwards of 60 dollars, while in the US they were being sold for 20 or 30 dollars, the difference in price being from paying import taxes, as well as the cost of maintaining a government generated monopoly by importer.

Although it was true that jeans of Mexican manufacture could be found in the country, the variation in quality, design and price made them undesirable in most cases to those importated.

However, all this has changed since the mid 1990s and now the acquisition of global brand goods such as jeans, vehicles, appliances or electronics is very common, and can be done at competitive prices to those found in the rest of the world, in some cases even at a lower price, because its manufacture is done in México

Mexico currently has Free Trade Agreements or Economic Agreements with 52 countries, not including The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, although signed and ratified so far by only Japan, its implementation will be nearly impossible under current circumstances, and it will be probably necessary to renegotiate it after the United States leaves it.

These are the countries with which the products manufactured in Mexico have preferential access:

• Canada
• United States of America
• Costa Rica
• Colombia
• Nicaragua
• Chile
• The European Union
• Israel
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Iceland
• Liechtenstein
• Norway
• Switzerland
• Uruguay
• Japan
• Peru
• Brazil
• Panama
• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Ecuador
• Paraguay
• Cuba
• Mercosur

And this is why removing Mexico from global production processes as the new US government intends to do, would be a big mistake, since American companies that produce in Mexico would lose access to these markets, many of which the US does not currently have a Free Trade Agreement.