Mexico defends good relations with China and US ahead of APEC summit, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico City): Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday defended her country’s good relations with China and the United States, while emphasizing that its main trade integration is with North America, two weeks before she takes part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China.
“We have a very good relationship with China, and we have a good relationship, a very good relationship, with the government of the United States,” the president said during her morning press conference.
Sheinbaum explained that although Mexico maintains trade ties with the Asian giant, its main economic partnership is with the United States and Canada, countries with which it shares the North American trade agreement (USMCA). She said some Chinese companies participate in Mexico and that Mexico imports many products from China, adding that even U.S.
automakers established in Mexico use components imported from the Asian country.
She insisted, however, that the economic integration of North America has consolidated over decades and noted that Mexico does not have a free trade agreement with China.
The president also defended her government’s decision to raise tariffs on various Chinese products in December 2025, a measure she attributed to the need to protect domestic industry from lower-priced imports. “We decided to raise some tariffs on China last December, but by our own decision under the Mexico Plan,” she said.
She added that the new tariffs responded to competition that various products manufactured in Mexico faced from imported goods sold at lower prices, which affected national production.
The statements come amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and negotiations to review the USMCA, in which the United States has expressed concern about the presence of Chinese products and companies in North American supply chains.
Mexico announced tariff increases in 2025 of up to 50% on certain products from countries with which it has no free trade agreements, including China, which questioned the measures.
Sheinbaum’s remarks come before her trip to Shenzhen, in southern China, where she will take part on November 18 and 19 in the leaders’ meeting of the 21 APEC economies. It will be her first visit to the Asian giant since she took office in October 2024, at a meeting Mexico will also attend as future host of the forum, whose summit it will organize in 2028.
APEC, founded in 1989, brings together economies on both sides of the Pacific and seeks to facilitate trade, investment and economic cooperation in the region.
