The Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, declared that he does not plan to initiate a Customs Union between Mexico and the United States.

“It is not in the spirit of the United States to make a customs union,” said Ebrard at a Coparmex event.

A customs union represents a form of economic integration. In this model, several countries eliminate tariffs among themselves. In addition, they apply a common external tariff to imports from third countries.

According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), this type of agreement is permitted under GATT. However, it must not increase protection against countries that are not part of the bloc.

Customs union between Mexico and the United States

At the end of 2024, Jaime Serra Puche proposed establishing common tariffs in the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (USMCA) to increase regional integration and competitiveness vis-à-vis other nations in the world.

Serra Puche indicated that these common tariffs already operate in the trade of televisions and sugar.

“When you reach that degree of maturity as a treaty, it is time to think about how to achieve greater solidity of integration and how, as a group, North America can compete with China and Europe, and I believe that this can be achieved, even partially, with a customs agreement that allows us to have the same tariff for the three countries towards the rest of the world,” he said at the time.

Then, at the end of last February, Mexico made a proposal for an automotive customs union. The initiative was addressed to the United States. The objective is to control imports from China. This was revealed by Scott Bessent, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

“A very interesting proposal that the Mexican government has made is to match the tariff levels that we in the United States have against China,” he commented this Friday in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

“I think it would be a nice gesture if the Canadians would do that as well, so that we could have a fortress in North America against the flood of Chinese imports coming from the most unbalanced economy in the history of modern times,” Bessent added.