Mexico achieves the largest trade surplus against the US in July

Braulio Carbajal

La Jornada Newspaper

Friday, September 4, 2026, p. 16

In July, Mexico achieved the largest trade surplus against the United States: 26.31 billion dollars, the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce of that country reported yesterday.

In the same period, Mexico remained the main trading partner of its northern neighbor and achieved record exports to that market.

According to the monthly report, the Mexican trade surplus resulted from unprecedented exports of 60.55 billion dollars, an interannual increase of 33.6 percent, and imports of 34.24 billion dollars, an advance of 18.3 percent.

With this result, Mexico surpassed Vietnam, which in July accumulated a surplus of 24.83 billion dollars; to Taiwan, with 20,666 million, and to China, with 17,361 million dollars.

In all three cases, exports to the US market were considerably lower than those to Mexico. Sales from China to the United States totaled 9.71 billion dollars; those of Taiwan, 5 billion and those of Vietnam, 1,589 million.

In July, Washington decided not to automatically renew the trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC), which entered into a process of annual reviews that will extend until 2036. However, the treaty remains in force and Mexico continues to participate in its benefits.

One of the issues that the US president, Donald Trump, has criticized the most is precisely the high trade deficit of the United States with Mexico.

This difference reached its highest level since March 2025 in July, after imports increased due to the boom in the construction of technological infrastructure linked to artificial intelligence, according to the Department of Commerce.

The gap stood at 88.6 billion dollars in July, an increase of 24.4 percent compared to the previous month. Exports fell 2.1 percent, to 310.7 billion dollars, while imports increased 2.8 percent, to 399.3 billion, driven by the purchase of computers, accessories and semiconductors.

Despite the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on goods from both allies and competitors, the United States registered record trade deficits in July against Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia. The trade balance with Switzerland became deficient, while the deficit with Canada was reduced from 3.7 billion to 3.2 billion dollars.

US trade has shown fluctuations since 2025 as a result of Trump's tariffs, which led companies to advance their imports, and due to the impact of the war in the Middle East.