Mexico’s Trade Round Slips a Week After a Call Neither Side Confirms

Mexico · Economy

Three things happened to Mexico’s trade file in the space of two days. Two of them reached the public through reporters rather than through either government.

Cargo inspection at Otay Mesa on the US-Mexico border. The fourth round of trade talks has slipped again (Photo: US Customs and Border Protection, public domain)

Mexico and the United States pushed their fourth round of trade talks back by a week, to 28 and 29 September 2026. The move followed a reported telephone call between Claudia Sheinbaum and Donald Trump on Wednesday 16 September.

A Call Neither Side Announced

Politico reported on Thursday that Sheinbaum and Trump had spoken by telephone the day before. Neither government announced the call, and neither has confirmed it on the record since.

Sheinbaum was asked about it as she left the National Palace on Thursday afternoon. She declined to confirm or deny that the conversation had taken place.

Politico cited one United States official and one person familiar with the call. The official said talks between the two countries keep moving in a positive direction.

The same official called the exchange constructive and rejected any suggestion it had gone badly. El Financiero, summarising the Politico account, said the anonymous source described the call as middling.

That source said new topics had entered the discussion and caused some confusion. Which side introduced them was not made clear in the report.

The Round That Slipped

The fourth round of the bilateral review had been set for the week of 21 September. The Wall Street Journal reported new dates of 28 and 29 September in Washington.

Mexico’s economy ministry then said on Thursday that the date of the round was not confirmed. Neither government has published those dates, so treat them as reported rather than fixed.

The meeting had already moved twice before, from early September and then mid-September. Trade consultant Jorge Molina told El Financiero that Washington’s diary is crowded for the coming weeks.

He pointed to a possible visit by Xi Jinping and to the Group of 20 summit. Mexico, on his reading, is not at the top of the American list right now.

How the Review Actually Works Now

This is the fourth meeting in a process that began in Mexico City on 28 and 29 May. Washington hosted the second round on 16 and 17 June, and Mexico City the third from 21 to 23 July.

The treaty’s joint review date of 1 July 2026 came and went without a renewal decision. The White House chose not to extend the agreement for a further sixteen years.

The pact instead moved into annual reviews and stays in force until July 2036 absent a new deal. So these rounds are no longer a countdown to a cliff edge.

They are the permanent machinery of a treaty that is now reopened every year. That changes the arithmetic for anyone planning a factory or a supply contract.

The Tariffs Still in Force

Section 232 duties on steel and aluminium stand at 50%. Cars, heavy trucks and car parts carry 25%, per the Tax Foundation’s tariff tracker.

Those are the rates Mexican industry wants cut when negotiators meet again. Business Coordinating Council president Jose Medina Mora said a reduction is needed for competitiveness.

He noted that Washington has set lower tariffs for several other trading partners. Goods that qualify under the treaty stay exempt from the newer Section 301 forced-labour tariffs.

The Mexican government has argued that this leaves its exporters with a relative tariff advantage. Mexico’s goods trade surplus with the United States reached a record of about 197 billion dollars in 2025.

A Separate Demand About Officials

On 15 September the White House sent Congress its annual list of major drug countries. Mexico was named among 23, as it was a year earlier.

The text credits Mexico with larger seizures, dismantled laboratories and more forces at the shared border. It then says Mexico must take additional action against what it calls narcoterrorist organisations.

The document asks for “exposing, arresting, and prosecuting the many corrupt public officials” that aided cartels. Several Mexican outlets rendered “exposing” in Spanish as “unmask”, which is a translation choice.

The determination is a counternarcotics instrument, not a document of the trade negotiation. It landed in the same week as the call and the postponed round, which is why the two are being read together.

Sheinbaum replied on Thursday that Mexico does not need to be judged from outside. She asked for a report on what Washington is doing about drug use at home.

The Aluminium Paper Trail

Mexico’s monitoring tool for aluminium trade is an automatic import notice for aluminium products. The economy ministry created it through a rule change in the official gazette on 2 April 2026.

The rule covers 42 tariff codes in chapter 76, aluminium and articles of aluminium. Importers file the notice through the digital trade window known as VUCEM.

That application opened on 18 May 2026, according to trade advisers TLC Asociados. Quoting the notice number on the customs entry became compulsory on 25 May 2026.

The filing records the country of smelt and pour, the supplier and the commercial value. That is the paperwork that makes transshipped metal harder to pass off as Mexican.

Fitch’s Two Messages

Fitch published an analysis on 17 September with no rating action attached. Its title says Mexico’s 2027 budget is more credible but medium-term risks persist.

The agency said the package brings positive changes, including more realistic macroeconomic assumptions. It singled out the 2% growth assumption, close to its own estimate of 1.8%.

In the same document it called the 3.9% deficit target less ambitious than April’s pre-criteria. Fitch expects public debt near 58% of output this year, converging on the BBB median.

Stabilising that debt would need borrowing requirements near 2.5% of output, the agency said. Quotations here are translated back from El Economista’s Spanish rendering of the Fitch note.

Mexico is rated BBB-minus with a stable outlook, the lowest investment-grade rung. Fitch also named Pemex as an additional risk to the public budget.

Roads, and the Budget Behind Them

Mexico’s infrastructure ministry set out its road programme at the presidential morning press conference. Secretary Jesus Antonio Esteva Medina put the figure at 647 billion pesos for the administration.

That is about US$37.6 billion at the Banxico FIX rate of 17.1872 pesos, determined on 17 September. The programme covers almost 11,400 kilometres, of which 1,796 are finished and 4,223 under way.

Priority roads account for 3,161 kilometres and 100.5 billion pesos, some US$5.8 billion. Development bank Banobras detailed 19 highway projects worth 213.9 billion pesos, around US$12.4 billion.

Fourteen have ministry approval and five remain under review, the bank said. The spending sits inside a 2027 package that Fitch has just called credible but unambitious.

What It Means If You Import From Mexico

Nothing in the tariff schedule changed this week, so landed costs are unchanged. What changed is the calendar, and the calendar is what pricing and hedging run on.

If you buy steel, aluminium or vehicle parts, the 50% and 25% rates still apply. Any relief now depends on a round that has no confirmed date.

If you import aluminium into Mexico, the automatic notice is already a live obligation. Mismatches between the notice and the customs entry can hold goods at the border.

If you are weighing a new plant, note that the treaty is reviewed every year now. That is a different planning horizon from the sixteen-year renewal that was on offer in July.

What Is Not Yet Known

No government has confirmed the 28 and 29 September dates on the record. The content of the Sheinbaum-Trump call remains unconfirmed by either side.

The new topics that entered the conversation have not been identified by anyone quoted. It is not known whether the counternarcotics demands are formally linked to the trade table.

Washington has not said whether it will cut the Section 232 rates for Mexico. Mexico has not said what it would offer in exchange for such a cut.

Fitch has not moved the rating, and its stable outlook limits the near-term risk. Whether the fourth round produces anything public is the next thing to watch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: El Economista, on the reported call between the two presidents, El Financiero, on the postponed fourth round, US State Department, the presidential determination text, Mexico News Daily, on Sheinbaum’s response, TLC Asociados, on the aluminium automatic import notice, El Economista, on the Fitch warning, El Economista, on the road investment programme, Banco de Mexico, the exchange-rate series