Taking a very significant step to be in alignment with President Trump’s North American trade bloc construct, Mexico has passed a sweeping set of tariffs against Chinese imports.
The motive for the move by President Claudia Sheinbaum and her political party, Morena, which controls both legislative chambers is clear. Mexico is moving into direct alignment with President Trump as the likelihood for the end of the current USMCA trade agreement looms.
President Trump has sent clear signals expressing his intent to dissolve the USMCA trade agreement in favor of two bilateral agreements, one with Mexico and one with Canada.
The Mexican government led by Sheinbaum have made moves throughout the year to stay in alignment with a favorable trade agreement, while the Canadian government led by Mark Carney has been more antagonistic toward any change.
The Mexican trade leadership seem to have long expected the change to the USMCA, and now there are indications Canada realizes what is about to happen, albeit reluctantly.
As a consequence of their proactive position, Mexico has now passed up to 50% tariffs against a host of imports, mostly textiles, shoes, appliances, cars and automobile parts. The tariffs will apply to any imports that are not part of a previously organized free trade agreement, which has the practical outcome of hitting mostly imports from China. That approach aligns directly with the tariff rate applied by President Trump toward Beijing.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s Congress approved Wednesday most of the tariff increases proposed by the government on more than 1,400 products imported from China and other countries that do not have free trade agreements with Mexico.
The Senate passed the measure Wednesday evening, following the lower chamber, which had approved the increases before dawn. The governing Morena party of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said the tariffs were necessary to spur domestic production, controls both chambers. The Senate passed the legislation with 76 votes in favor, five against and 35 abstentions.
Analysts say the real motivation is ongoing negotiations with Washington, Mexico’s most important trading partner. Sheinbaum has been trying to find relief from remaining tariffs imposed on Mexican imports by the Trump administration, which has accused China of using Mexico as a backdoor into the U.S. market.
Tariff increases of as much as 50% will affect textiles, shoes, appliances, cars and auto parts among other things beginning in January.
China will be the most affected as Mexico imported $130 billion worth of products from the country in 2024, second only to the what Mexico bought from the United States. The Chinese government was critical of the proposed tariff increases when they were announced in September. (more)
Oh ,,sad panda..
Panda will only pretend to be sad. Dragon will find ways to retaliate from behind the pouty face that distracts you from the daggers.
I’m no fan of Mexico but I have to give Mexico credit for getting ahead of the changes to be in the best position to make the best deal possible for Mexico.
There are trillions at stake!
Mexico watched and learned. They watched what he did to Canada.
Imagine the world of daily choices that Sheinbaum wakes to everyday. Cartels to the left of me, globalists to the right.
Worse yet for her, she realizes that either group would happily (and perhaps easily) assassinate her and her family.
…here I am, stuck in the middle with you!
Stealers Wheel, 1972.
Gives credibility to “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”.
But, they will do just what China does, they will have the APPEARANCE of trade rules compliance, and shortly find any ways to cheat.
Will that include the ingredients for fentanyl???
Zero tariffs on the chemicals from China for the production of Fentanyl. The cartels have way too much power in Mexico
I read where China is no longer shipping those ingredients to Mexico.
Maybe China has changed their supply routes to Canada. Based on the number of Fentanyl ODs in most northern US cities, there still seems to be no shortage of the poison.
That would be great. Can you post a link to the source?
GB Bari: My home county ( Montgomery, Dayton Ohio) had the largest number of
Opoid deaths in the US per capita a few years back. We lost 1400 persons out of a population
of 440,000. Made covid deaths in the area look like nothing.
I did a little diving into where outlying the deaths were occurring in the region. It’s what about
the time that Sessions supposedly had the 400 some sealed indictments. About 1/4 of those
indictments were in Western Pa, Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia, Southeastern Ohio,
North and West Ky, and Southeastern Indiana.
What do all the above mentioned areas have in common? They’re all adjacent to the Ohio
River. The drugs that went into areas I was well acquainted to did NOT follow the interstates.
Drug ODs in areas like Washington Courthouse, Ohio, Xenia, Fairborn, Dayton, then taking
a hook to the left, scooping up some outlying towns outside Dayton, and finally winding up
in Indiana , hugging the border. Now…. what route goes through all these locales, that’s not
an interstate? State Route 35.
When I did my initial research , I was sure that everything was being shipped by land.
Witnessing the destruction of the cartel boats outside of Venezuela, I’m beginning to think
that maybe 35 was the end portion of the destination, and the unassembled goods ( barrels
of chemicals to make the drugs) were coming in by barges.
Lastly, didn’t the numbers of fentanyl deaths start zooming when Canada got involved
in the game? Wasn’t it about the time that Whitmer issued the crazy directive that no
motorized powerboats could be used on Lake Erie, Michigan, Huron, and Superior? No
other state in the union is adjacent to as much inland water as Michigan. Watching
Whitmer in action, I think it was less about covid safety, and more about facilitating
drug assembly and shipment in Canada, undetected by fishermen, recreational boaters.
Sounds like you’ve identified routes that the DEA should have easily identified and monitored for interdiction.
But the fact that the drugs flowed and consistently made it into those towns and cities, indicates that either the DEA people are not too bright, or, somebody’s “looking the other way,”
PS – I spent the latter half of 1952 through the first half of 1957 living in the north side of Dayton, Ohio right off of North Main Street on Marson Drive. Zone 5 (Zip code 45405.) So I knew Dayton when NCR was the big employer there. They always put up a huge Christmas tree every Christmas out in front of the main building. My dad however, worked for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
“Somebody’s looking the other way” . Amen. For decades.
When I was livin’ the dream in crackville in the early 90s, I would routinely see things on a local
level. Infrastructure that assisted the adjacent (literally) drug trade. Coincidences that kept re-occuring.
That the local police would act like I was crazy when I pointed out. On the days I sat outside,
waiting to talk to the shift commander after the gunfire was ramping back up down the street.
I saw street lights wired to go off and come back on when cars or pedestrians came near them. I
spent one whole summer most likely watching the product flow in and out of a nearby crackhouse.
The way I knew? Every. Single. Car probably bringing in the goods was a 70s Ford intermediate, all
painted the exact same bronze color. Some repainted that color, but it was an extra cost factory
option when the cars were built.
I read in the paper about money obtained during drug seizures, never more then $1000. I never
read ( or heard) about anything going remotely higher up the food chain. I saw convenience stores
with 5 pay phones adjacent ( this was the beeper era, prior to cell phones). I could walk up to some
stores in the neighborhood and see stores stocked with goods purloined from stolen food stamp
proceeds. Or hair and nail salons that cost $60 dollars a pop, purchased from boyfriend’s drug sales
proceeds.
Once you paid any bit of attention, you could not unsee it. Before cell phones, I could pull into any
Atlanta metro neighborhood and tell you if it was hardwired for drug sales. Lots of pay phones,
by the week hotels, pawn shops or flea markets to fence stolen goods, a large, usually subsidized
apartment complex. And a poor, single family residential neighborhood nearby that was withing
walking distance to have things to steal to fence. And not one person tried to do one damn thing
about any of it. And, if you pointed any of it out you were the bad guy.
Oh, you’re area of Dayton was very nice when I was growing up. You were probably able to go to Forest
Park Plaza to either shop, or even to go to an amusement park in the earlier years. My grandparents
lived nearby, on Seibenthaler.
That sounds a lot like the TV series THE WIRE was modeled after. Great program by the way. Very sad too that our cities are that way.
The Wire was in Baltimore, once of the top murder cities of the US.
PS – the City is reporting the homicide rate has dropped significantly over the past 2 years BUT the number of “all deaths” is higher than pre-covid years so IMHO they are simply lying and falsely attributing probably half of the homicide deaths to various non-criminal deaths…. I just don’t believe Democrats at all anymore when they try to tell us how great they’re performing.
This wasn’t even in a big city. Although you could literally walk to Atlanta
within a half mile.
The excuses made for the drug sales were pathetic. There was actual a big
oak tree behind the town police station, a hundred yards away. The cops
that I talked to back then all knew they were making drug sales underneath
it.
“And why??” I’d ask. Also, you couldn’t report any suspected drug activity
to a beat cop. I think I heard the reason why at a neighborhood meeting. A
guy that had renovated his home reported drug sales up the street to a beat
cop. There were 3 crack houses within roughly 200 yards of his home.
He was crying when he told the story. He was bailing out. The drug dealers
had drove by and shot out his front windows.
Yep. Seibenthaler Ave. was about a half mile north of us. My folks shopped at an A&P food store in what’s called North Town Shopping Center today (and I think back then too). I’m not sure which other stores they patronized, other than Rike’s Dept. store downtown. Dad had an office at Union Station which is no longer there.
Ad rem: Why, oh why does my formatting come out like this?
Anything you can do on your end? I feel……”marginalized”.
I would like to see a container ship seized coming from China and each container individually checked for fentanyl ingredients or contraband…. IF the ship has transported ingredients, seize the ship and put the crew on trial, including the ships captain and the company board that owned the ship. Make importation of the chemicals that produce fentanyl a felony. Kinda like when a small bust is made local and a car is confiscated and sold at auction, just a grand scale. Make an example of Hapag-Lloyd, Evergreen or Yang Ming and transport would stop cold. Think outside the box.
You can’t do that to Mitch!
My immediate thought exactly!!
Mexico needs to get real but to do so must overcome a couple centuries of mañana, mañana.
It’s not just mañana, it’s the endemic corruption that controls & taints EVERYTHING there. It’s so sad (I live there much of the year). 59 years experience.
What’s that old saying, “3.0 performance is recognizing the right answer when told”?
Can you please explain what your comment means? I’ve never heard this before.
on a 4 point academic grading system, a 3.0 is a B minus..
taspok, thank you. That was helpful.
See taspok below. I heard the expression when I had a summer job at an Army base. Loosely interpreted as recognizing the answer when someone explains is considered slightly above average performance. It denotes a less than rigorous standard of performance. Applied to this story, President Claudia Sheinbaum’s recognizing how to work with President Trump for Mexico’s benefit is a good, but not a high, achievement. PDJT hasn’t been secretive about his intended direction. Contrast this case with Canada. Told bluntly the direction and intentions but still can’t/won’t cooperate. Not 3.0 performance, more like 1.0
That old saying must still be relevant in contemporary US education, with the woke indoctrination.
Parrot the instructor’s woke lies: A, 4.0.
Challenge the instructor’s woke lies: D, 1.0.
The identity class Marxists have been pushed back somewhat, but this is likely only temporary. They are resentful and plotting their resurgence.
There are millions of low performers throughout society enjoying unmerited elevated positions and degrading quality of life for everyone else. The wokeists will fight to maintain status quo and the US is stilled screwed.
Examples:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/harvard-report-warns-damaging-grade-inflation-60-grades-are
https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025/12/princeton-news-adpol-dean-michael-gordin-continued-grade-inflation-overuse-of-a-plus-faculty-meeting
All in all, less pretending by Mexico compared to Canada.
The cartels are run by serious people.
Hmmm, panda’s backside is a little telling.
I’ll be impressed when Mexico stops allowing Belizians free access to the US border.
I read the Belize news regularly and read regularly that some guy who is wanted for murder is unavailable for a while because he’s spending some time in the US.
Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.
The fentanyl will precursors will continue pouring into Mexico and the Drug cartels will continue running the Mexican government.
Like SD has written before, antifa is fib. Cartels are another 3 letter org.
🎯
Does anyone think there is a written trade agreement for those chemicals? Of course not. So, what Sheinbam says does nothing while sounding like it does.
It is not going to stop until the Cartels feel the heat from the US military. We know where they are in Mexico and those places need to be turned into parking lots.
That reminds me of believe half of what you hear and see with believe less than half of what you read and verify. OK I used my own numbers because today so much propaganda, fake news, and rumors…bill
Well, well, well.
I guess MeHeCo isn’t so tough after all.
Complete capitulation to Trump’s plan.
😆🤡🇲🇽🌮
What do you wanna bet? The abstainers are all bankrolled by China?
They may be dumb, but they’re not stupid. We’ll see how this plays out.
Do these changes apply to 100% of the country or just the 20% controlled by the central government?
Panda turned their back on us when they dropped the CONvid19 because their nose was bent outta shape over the 2019 trade deal
Eggcellant!
I do hope that Trump can break the chains that bind Mexico. The Mexican people have been preyed upon for so long. It will never be America Sorh but it need not be a place that its population needs to flee for a decent life.
If that did occur, the level of voluntary self deportation would make your head swim. The cost of living is way lower,
many of the ones moving back would absolutely be living large, the potential to rebuild previously broken areas
would be sky high. You would be highly likely to see extended, generational families return to where they intitially
came from.
Destroy the cartels, take away the bribes from the corrupt ( see destroy the cartels) , watch the safety and quality
of life zoom. People from Mexico that are struggling here would break down doors to get back home, if it was safe.
Mexico’s Scheinbaum is just playing the game to get what she wants. Profits from precursors and kick backs from illegal drug traffickers don’t have tariffs and continue to flow freely. I have a family member who suffers from drug addiction and they are still widely available. I asked another if the streets were drying up at all. Nope.
It would make sense for Mexico to make those textiles, shoes, appliances and cars. Mexico has all those industries already. They were not too competitive because of trade barriers. Industries protected from trade become uncompetitive. Mexico has to be planning on competing for the jobs coming back to this hemisphere. Get all the critical jobs to the US. Get the next level jobs to this Hemisphere. Canada had a chance but Carney is a globalist clown.
This is what I voted for. Among other things ….
For all of us conservatives & America 1st minded people who’ve actually never seen this scenario at home here in America, this is what having control of the legislative & executive branches of gubmint looks like.
💩 gets done.
Canada now stands alone in North America. No ally. Good luck with that approach, current & former PMs & woke politicians.
If things keep going the way they are, Sundance is going to have to apologize to the Mexicans for calling the Canadians Snow Mexicans.
Mexico sees lotsa money just lying on the table that can be theirs simply by taking it.
China is facing deflation. Xi’s grip on power has weakened. There is discontent everywhere and the predictions for 2026 are negative. President Trump has a Panda in his crosshairs.
Carney (Canada) will continue to sell us out to China. Why? “Because Trump”
Well now.. is Mexico finally trying to become a friend instead of “that” neighbor.?
No.
What’s the use of passing laws if they are just going to go around them some other way to keep cheating anyways? And what happens when the Democrats come back into power as a result of removing every poor Republican voter from subsidized healthcare when they become ill and lose their job or are become ill between jobs?
It’s just today’s paper and ink.
President Trump the Frito Bandito….. LOL
Well, I’d rather have cheap Mexican products than cheap Chinese stuff. Mexico may be totally corrupt but they’re not communists.
I heard this morning on Bannon’s War Room Live while SKB had Mike Lindell on breaking the news that he is running to be Governor of Minnesota.
I’m sure everyone will hear about soon as I think it’s already all ready out amongst the press. 🙂
If Mike Lindell ever becomes the Governor of Minnesota, we’ll all throw a big PARTY! 🙂
Mexico knew they would get no help from the US Congress in a trade spat due to; the drug trafficking, illegal immigration and lingering resent by voters over many of the lingering aspects related to NAFTA.
Canada on the other hand always knew what was coming. Up to about 2000, there has always been a “familial” element to the Canadian and US relationship that biased discussions between the two governments. That “familial” feeling was backed up by cash in the pockets of US Congressional Members. Mark Carney was appointed Prime Minister because, unlike Trudeau, it was believed Carney spoke the “familial” language that our Congress and more importantly the financiers of Congress Understand.
Like Trudeau, Mark Carney has failed to buy enough support in the Congress as he was counting on goodwill that no longer exists … while US Congress Critters took the cash and looked at Carney and asked … who are you again?
Now Canada will have to scramble … look for Carney to spend more than a few days in Mexico as did Trudeau .. between meetings with President Trump and Team.
Good for Mexico. Good for us.
What does it say about US when even Mexico was able to get its congress to pass the Chinese tariffs, while our congress continues to sit on its hands? What a worthless bunch of slugs! between them and the whacked-out courts, it’s amazing that anything positive gets done in the USA.
Pres. Trump ought to SHAME the “republican” congress for not even keeping up with the Mexicans.
Smart moves, Claudia!
Whose your Daddy!!!
Comments from several Canadian government officials quoted in a CBC article express their belief that there is no indication the US and PDJT have expressed any interest in ending the USCMA agreement. So do they know something we don’t know or is this another snow job occurring north of the border??