In May of last year, the now outgoing Biden administration made the decision to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese exports, ranging from 25 percent for personal protective equipment to 100 percent for electric vehicles. This is one of the many ways in which Democratic trade policy has built on, rather than reversed, the revisionism of Donald Trump. These measures were preceded by a wave of discussion, both in the media and the policy circuit, claiming, often on the basis of anecdotal evidence, that China had found ingenious ways of circumventing American tariffs, namely by exporting its goods via third countries with preexisting free trade agreements with the United States.

Mexico, which has become an obsession for Republicans, has received a great deal of attention. In 2020, the Brookings Institution, an influential centrist think tank, drew connections between Chinese imports of fentanyl components to Mexico and the ongoing public health crisis in the United States fueled by the drug. Both Trump and Joe Biden have discussed the issue with Xi Jinping, treating it, alongside Taiwan and the use of artificial intelligence technology, as a central political issue.

This hostile environment, in which Mexico is caught in the United States and China’s great power rivalry, has served as a pretext for Trump to commit to imposing tariffs on America’s southern neighbor. However, examined closely, it’s clear that claims that Mexico has become a backdoor for Chinese exports have been greatly exaggerated.

The differences between the value of Mexican exports to the United States and what it imports from China is considerable. The same is true of the relative size of foreign direct investments made by both countries to Mexico. Relative to the size of US-Mexico trade and US foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico, China’s equivalent figures are marginal. There is also little evidence that Mexico is offering a backdoor to goods destined for the US market.

According to data from Mexico’s Ministry of Economy, the United States is by far the largest source of FDI to Mexico. Since 2006, it has invested $242.9 billion in Mexico. Spain and Canada come next with $56.2 and $53 billion. China occupies the eighteenth position, at just $2.5 billion. In 2023, the United States was by far the greatest source of FDI coming to Mexico: $14.5 billion. China, meanwhile, was again the eighteenth largest investor in the Mexican market, at $161 million.

In contrast, since 2021 the United States has invested $61.2 billion in Mexico. Of that, a third was new investments. In contrast, China invested just $1.4 billion over the same period, of which two thirds was new investments, and Hong Kong invested $692 million, of which 17 percent was new investments.

China is, however, Mexico’s second-largest source of imports, after the United States. Since 2006, Mexico has maintained a trade deficit with China of more than twelve times the value of its imports. In 2023, Mexico imported goods and services valued at $113 billion from China, while it only exported $9 billion. Mexican imports from China have grown at a 10.3 percent yearly average rate from 2006 to 2023, and from 2021 to 2023, the immediate period after the pandemic shutdown, they grew by 12.9 percent on average each year. From 2017 to 2019, imports from China increased slightly, at a lower yearly average rate of 12.1 percent.

Although the United States is Mexico’s main source of imports, it is also by far its main export market. Since 2006, Mexico has maintained a trade surplus on average of 1.7 times the value of exports in relation to its imports per year. In 2023, Mexico exported $467.9 billion worth of goods to the United States, while it imported $253.4 billion. Imports from the United States have grown at a slightly higher rate than exports — 5.7 percent on average per year from 2006 to 2023 for the former, while the average yearly rate for the latter has been 5.4 percent. From 2017 to 2019, exports to the United States grew by 9.6 percent on average per year, while from 2021 to 2023, they increased 22.4 percent yearly on average. Placed side by side, it’s clear that the growth in Chinese trade with Mexico is miniscule next to its American counterpart.

The main goods imported from China by value have not changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. They are mainly finished goods such as telephones, passenger and transport vehicles, and data processing machines. Inputs and intermediate goods, such as parts and accessories for machines and motor vehicles, electronic integrated circuits, semiconductors, electric batteries, and electric materials and components also make up a portion of Chinese exports to Mexico. However, the goods Mexico imports from China that have increased in volume since the end of the COVID pandemic are mainly finished and destined for the Mexican market: motor vehicles for the transport of goods have grown 3,732 percent and passenger vehicles by 240.6 percent between the three years before 2020 and the three years after.

The purchase of some intermediate goods from China, such as aluminum sheets, electrical batteries, liquid pumps, and parts for internal combustion engines, has also grown by between 100 and 200 percent. It is not impossible that some of these intermediate goods might be used to assemble finished goods that are then exported to the United States. But still, their value is nowhere near enough to explain the differences between what Mexico imports from China and what it exports to the United States.

While the goods that Mexico exports to the United States have not been changed by the pandemic, their volume has increased considerably, even more than those imported from China. The main goods that Mexico exports to the United States are passenger and transport vehicles, data processing machines, parts and accessories of motor vehicles, telephones, monitors, and tractors. The value of these goods exceeds the value of goods imported by Mexico from China by several orders of magnitude. For example, the value of Mexican exports of motor vehicles for the transport of goods is almost eighty-six times the value of those same items imported from China.

Based on any clear-eyed assessment, it is apparent that Mexico has not become a backdoor for Chinese imports to the United States, at least not in any significant way. What has happened is that Americans are demanding more Mexican finished goods after the pandemic and Mexicans are also demanding more Chinese finished goods. What is more probable is that the United States, fearing a relative decline in its global influence, has become hostile to Chinese trade with what Washington considers to be its allies and is using its influence to undermine such efforts.

Nevertheless, narratives of Chinese economic scheming will have real-world consequences. Already Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to cut Chinese imports to Mexico, mainly of inputs, through an import-substitution strategy. It is possible the United States’ belligerence toward Mexico is an attempt to extract concessions ahead of the forthcoming 2026 revision of the United States–Mexico–Canada free trade agreement. Such a move is just another worrying sign that the United States is willing to use its control over global trade to advance its own political ends.