Mexican Authorities Threaten To Retaliate If United States Reimposes Metals Tariffs

As Connecting the Dots reported last week, officials in the Biden administration and in the U.S. Congress are growing increasingly worried about a surge in steel and aluminum imports coming from Mexico and are considering reimposing Section 232 tariffs on these metals imports as a result.

According to Reuters, Mexican policymakers have responded to that threat, saying their government may impose retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. goods if the United States acts first.

Mexican Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro did not say which U.S. exports her government would penalize and did acknowledge that “Imposing tariffs on steel is not convenient for either the United States or Mexico, because if there were tariffs, they would be impacted the most, given their larger presence in the market.”

As a reminder, when it comes to Section 232 tariffs, Connecting the Dots reports developments for members’ information only.

MSCI consistently has argued that global overcapacity and other unfair trading practices, particularly by China, have harmed the U.S. steel and aluminum markets. To address this circumvention, MSCI has advised federal officials to provide relief for producers up and down the supply chain and to consider the consequences of any new trade policy, including: the economic impact of global overcapacity on the entire domestic metals supply chain; transition times and implementation rules to any new policy; availability of domestic metals to meet U.S. national security needs, as well as general industrial and consumer demand; and trade flows under current free trade agreements, including the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). MSCI also asked that Canada and Mexico be excluded from any trade penalties.

Click here to review all of MSCI’s advocacy on Section 232 tariffs.