From January to June, Mexican exports to the neighboring country grew 5.5% to 249,041 million dollars, an increase that was greater than the average of American purchases and contrasted with the falls of 1.2% and 2.1% of Canadian and Chinese exports, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Mexican economy lost dynamism in the second quarter of the year, but its main support of external demand remains resilient.<\/p>\n
From January to June, Mexican exports to the United States grew 5.5% to 249,041 million dollars, which allowed them to gain a record market share of 15.9% of American purchases of merchandise in that period, surpassing the 15.5% it achieved in the first half of 2023, according to figures released this Tuesday by the United States Census Bureau.<\/p>\n
These data are known after it was learned last week that the Mexican economy grew 0.2% quarterly in the second quarter of the year, a rate lower than the 0.3% growth in the first quarter and 0.8% in the second quarter of 2023.<\/p>\n
The slowdown in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is clear, but the external demand of the market that absorbs just over 80% of Mexican merchandise exports maintained, at least, a rate of growth similar to that of the first half of 2023, when it grew 5.4 percent.<\/p>\n
The expansion of Mexico’s sales to the neighboring economy was higher than the 3.1% increase shown by total imports from the United States and also occurred in the presence of falls in exports to the United States of its two main competitors in that market. Hence Mexico’s market gain.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, Canadian shipments fell 1.2% to $205.869 billion, narrowing their share from 13.8% to 13.1 percent.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Chinese exports fell 2.1% to $198.410 billion, with their market share falling from 13.3 to 12.7 percent.<\/p>\n
Both Canadian sales \u2014especially focused on primary goods\u2014 and Chinese sales \u2014intensive in manufactured products and capital goods\u2014, have had two years of declines.<\/p>\n
A few months before the presidential elections in November in the United States, in which Donald Trump will once again compete \u2014who in the past has been especially vocal against his country’s trade deficits\u2014, the numbers continue to show a growing trade deficit with Mexico.<\/p>\n
By June, the imbalance for the neighboring country grew 9.5% to a new high of $82.704 billion, although during the first half of 2023 the expansion had been 19 percent.<\/p>\n
In half-yearly cuts, in a decade the United States merchandise trade deficit with Mexico has increased 220.5 percent.<\/p>\n
Slowdown in the margin<\/p>\n
Focusing only on what happened in June, Mexican exports slowed down, growing 2.8% to $42.245 billion, a rate lower than the 6.1% advance they had in May and the 13.1% in April.<\/p>\n
For their part, imports rose 1.1% to $27.685 billion, so that the US deficit rose 2.1% to $14.559 billion.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the US trade deficit narrowed slightly in June, although less than expected, due to a smaller increase in imports than exports in percentage and value.<\/p>\n
The US trade deficit reached 73.1 billion in June, 2.5% less than in May.<\/p>\n
This is a break in the constant upward trend observed since August of last year. The deficit was nevertheless reduced somewhat less than expected by the markets, which pointed to 72.8 billion. China continues to be the country with which the United States has the largest trade deficit. (With information from AFP).<\/p>\n
octavio.amador@eleconomista.mx<\/p>\n