United States

What the numbers say

We cover the United States where it connects to a Latin American strategy, not as a market in its own right. The relevant figure is trade at 25 per cent of GDP, the lowest here by a wide margin. This is a domestic market that happens to be enormous, not an export platform.

In practice that reduces to three questions. Whether a US entity is the right holding structure for regional operations. How a cross-border supply chain should be arranged under USMCA. And whether a nearshoring decision should put production in Mexico with US distribution, or the reverse.

• $90,027
  GDP per capita
• 2.2%
  GDP growth, 2025
• 25%
  Trade as a share of GDP

Population, GDP, GDP per capita, growth, trade share and foreign direct investment: World Bank, 2025, in current US dollars. The US trade share is 2024 and Guatemalan FDI is 2024, the latest available in each case. Chile's copper output is USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026.

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Four things that change the plan

Checked September 2026. This section moves faster than the others, and the trade policy items below carry their own dates for that reason.

The USMCA joint review took place on 1 July 2026 and the agreement was not renewed. The United States declined to confirm extension for a further sixteen years. The agreement remains in force, its outer termination date is 1 July 2036, and because extension was not confirmed the parties must now review it every year instead of every six. Bilateral United States and Mexico rounds are running alongside the trilateral track, with a fourth round set for Washington in September 2026. That is the position as at 4 September 2026 and it will move. A Mexico or United States production decision taken this year should be stress tested against the agreement lapsing, not only against it continuing.

The 25 per cent tariff on Mexican goods that dominated 2025 planning no longer applies. Executive Order 14389 ended the IEEPA tariff actions on 20 February 2026, and the temporary 10 per cent import surcharge that replaced them under Section 122 expired on 23 July 2026 at its 150-day statutory limit. There is at present no across-the-board United States tariff on Mexican-origin goods. Section 232, Section 301 and antidumping duties are unaffected and are where live exposure sits, product by product. One caution worth knowing: the Harmonized Tariff Schedule still prints the terminated 25 per cent Mexico line without a termination note, so checking the schedule on its own returns a rate that is not being collected.

The USMCA regional value content threshold for a passenger vehicle is 75 per cent under the net cost method, not the 62.5 per cent NAFTA used and that is still widely quoted. On top of that, 40 per cent of the vehicle's content must be produced at a wage of at least 16 dollars an hour, rising to 45 per cent for light and heavy trucks, and at least 70 per cent by value of the producer's steel and aluminium purchases must be originating. The tests are cumulative. A vehicle can clear 75 per cent regional value content and still fail to originate on the labour test. All of it has been fully phased in since 1 July 2023.

USMCA restricts duty drawback. Duties paid on an imported input are refundable, on condition of export to another USMCA party, only up to the lesser of the duty paid on import and the duty paid to the destination party. Goods entered under a duty deferral programme, which is what Mexico's IMMEX regime is, are assessed as if they had been withdrawn for domestic consumption. So a European company importing Asian components into Mexico under IMMEX, assembling there and shipping to the United States does not recover those Mexican import duties in full. It is a common omission in nearshoring landed-cost models and it is usually worth several points of margin.

Sources

• Office of the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Greer issues statement on the USMCA joint review. 1 July 2026.
• USMCA chapter 34, article 34.7, Review and Term Extension, which sets the 16-year term, the annual review that follows a non-confirmation, and the restoration mechanism. Published by USTR.
• Joint statement from Ambassador Greer and Mexico's Secretary of Economy Marcelo Ebrard, directing a fourth negotiating round in Washington in September 2026. 23 July 2026.
• Executive Order 14389 of 20 February 2026, Ending Certain Tariff Actions, 91 FR 9437. Published 25 February 2026.
• Proclamation 11012 of 20 February 2026, imposing a temporary import surcharge, 91 FR 9339, which expired at the close of 23 July 2026.
• USMCA chapter 4, Rules of Origin, appendix to annex 4-B, articles 3, 6 and 7, published by USTR.
• USMCA chapter 2, article 2.5, Drawback and Duty Deferral Programs, published by USTR.