Mexican companies eager to keep CUSMA treaty, report shows

From left to right: Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney; Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum; U.S. President Donald Trump. (The Canadian Press / The Associated Press)

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican businesses are eager to maintain a trilateral trade agreement with the United States and Canada that is up for review this year, according to a report summarizing Mexico’s public consultation, released on Monday.

The consulted companies called the CUSMA treaty, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020, essential for investment certainty and protecting regional supply chains.

Mexico’s Economy Ministry released the 88-page report one week before the U.S. and Mexico are slated to hold bilateral discussions to kick off a three-way review of the USMCA.

With some 80% of Mexican exports going to the U.S., the treaty is critical to the Latin American country’s economy.

The pact, signed during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term, requires Mexico, the U.S. and Canada to hold a joint review this year to extend the agreement.

If extended, the treaty will remain in place for another 16 years. If the countries don’t reach an agreement, it is subject to annual reviews, which many industries consider an effective death knell for the USMCA.

The report stresses that Mexican businesses broadly want to strengthen the pact rather than a wholesale renegotiation.

That, however, may be overly optimistic, given that Trump has publicly questioned the need for the treaty and threatened to pull out of it altogether.

(Reporting by Emily Green; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Andrei Khalip)