Despite negotiations with Washington, Mexico failed in its attempt to be excluded from the 25% tariff.
Mexico failed in its attempt to be excluded from the 25% tariff on U.S. imports of steel, aluminum, and products derived from both metals originating worldwide.
These tariffs went into effect beginning March 12, Washington, DC time (10 p.m. Mexico time), in compliance with a series of executive orders by President Donald Trump.
To avoid the aforementioned tariffs, Mexico's Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, held negotiations in Washington with his American counterparts, but were unsuccessful, at least with regard to their implementation.
In recent hours, Trump has maintained strong friction with Canada; the White House ruled out an exception for Australia, and the results of Ebrard's negotiations were awaited until the very end.
When Trump imposed tariffs of 10% on US aluminum imports and 25% on steel in his first term, only three countries were excluded, either without quotas or expressly on a temporary basis: Mexico, Canada and Australia.
White House spokesman Kush Desai confirmed in a statement that the tariffs would take effect at midnight Wednesday, with no exemptions for any U.S. trading partners.
The measure will have an inflationary impact on a wide variety of products, from cars and appliances to pipes and construction structures, in the case of steel; and cans, doors and windows, as well as solar panels and almost all types of vehicles, in the case of aluminum.
Based on what has happened in similar situations in the past, Mexico's response is expected to be announced this Wednesday by President Claudia Sheinbaum at a morning press conference at the National Palace.
Considering the metals and their derivatives covered and US import data for 2024, China will have the greatest tariff impact, with potentially affected trade of $38.514 billion, followed by Mexico ($34.83 billion) and Canada ($34.144 billion).
Mexican export figures to the US market are broken down as follows: steel ($3.4999 billion), steel derivatives ($8.0428 billion), aluminum ($396.9 million), and aluminum derivatives ($22.8903 billion).
In fact, Mexico was the country that exported the most aluminum derivatives to the United States in 2024, considering the products covered by Trump's order.
However, that potential impact would be somewhat lessened by a provision included in Trump's proclamations. According to Executive Orders 10895 and 10896 of February 10, 2025, for derivative products, Section 232 tariffs would apply only to the steel or aluminum content of the derivative product and would not apply to derivative products processed in other countries using steel or aluminum that was "melted and poured" (steel) or "cast and formed" (aluminum) in the United States.
One more clarification: the lists of steel and aluminum derivatives contain some duplications (for a total of approximately $6.5 billion in imports in 2024).
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 authorizes the President to impose trade restrictions, such as tariffs or quotas, if the Secretary of Commerce determines, after an investigation, that imports of a good “threaten to impair” U.S. national security.
In 2018, President Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum imports under Section 232.
During the Trump and Biden administrations, the United States negotiated exemptions for some U.S. trading partners and granted entity-specific exclusions, as well as General Approved Exclusions (GAEs) applicable to any importer.
On February 10, 2025, President Trump made changes to the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, including increasing the aluminum tariff from 10% to 25% effective March 12, 2025, eliminating all country exemptions for both steel and aluminum effective March 12, 2025, and expanding the scope of products covered by the tariffs.
Trump also directed the Secretary of Commerce to terminate all existing GAEs effective March 12, 2025, with other product exclusions to "remain in effect until their expiration date or until the volume of the excluded product is imported, whichever occurs first."
They see a change of model
Minutes before the new tariffs went into effect, Undersecretary of Foreign Trade Luis Rosendo Gutiérrez published and then quickly deleted a post on the social network X in which he opined that the United States had returned to “trade protectionism” for reasons of national security.
Gutiérrez participated, along with Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, in in-person negotiations in Washington to try to prevent the 25% tariff on U.S. imports of steel, aluminum, and derivatives of both metals from around the world from being applied to Mexico.
“My trips to Washington, DC in recent weeks have made clear to me the return of trade protectionism. That's how it was born, and with tariffs reaching up to 50%, it financed the public budget until the beginning of the 20th century,” Gutiérrez wrote in a message sent via Twitter, which he later deleted from his account.
In that same message, the official argued: “It is very important to understand that the imposition of tariffs is not an issue against Mexico, but rather an instrument used within a new global trade design where the most relevant variable is not price or competitiveness, but economic security. That changes the entire model.”
He concluded with this local reference: “Without a doubt, what Mexico has achieved in the last 30 years in terms of trade, and particularly in the last 6 years, not only allows our country to face this new, undoubtedly complex challenge, but also to emerge stronger at the beginning of what is already perceived as a new paradigm. @Claudiashein @m_ebrard.”
