MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico’s president acknowledged Thursday that Canada is concerned about reports of a Chinese company’s plan to build an auto plant in Mexico, but said it does not exist yet.
President Claudia Sheinbaum said she spoke recently with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and assured him that she does not support excluding Mexico from the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
But Trudeau said later Thursday that having Mexico in the deal “is my first choice,” “leaving all doors open” on the future of the trilateral trade deal.
“Pending the elections and the decisions made by Mexico, we can look at other options,” Trudeau said in an appearance in Canada.
On Wednesday, provincial leaders in Canada called on Trudeau to negotiate a trade deal with the United States that does not include Mexico.
“The president does not agree to withdraw Mexico from the agreement, he told me very clearly,” Sheinbaum said after a bilateral meeting between the two leaders at the G20 summit this week.
“He asked me about the company’s car plant in China, and if there was a plant in Mexico,” he said, to which he replied that the company’s only North American plant was in California.
This was a reference to Chinese car maker BYD, which is said to have been planning to build a plant in Mexico but has not yet done so.
Trudeau said “there have been real and genuine concerns raised about China’s investment in Mexico.”
Politicians in the United States and Canada expressed concern that under the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, Chinese companies could assemble cars in Mexico and ship them north, avoiding tariffs.
On Wednesday, Doug Ford, the president of Canada’s most populous region, led a call with 13 provincial and territorial officials and said they want Trudeau to make a trade agreement between the US, Canada’s chief trade partner.
“There is a clear consensus that everyone agrees that we need a bilateral trade agreement with the US and a bilateral trade agreement with Mexico,” Ford told reporters in Toronto after a call with regional leaders.
“We know that Mexico is importing cheap Chinese parts, beating the stickers to Mexico, and sending them through the US and Canada, causing American jobs to be lost and Canadian jobs. We want fair trade,” he said.
Sheinbaum attributed the call to a political conference in Canada, saying “they use these issues as part of the election campaign.”
There is a Chinese car manufacturing facility in Mexico, operated by Giant Motors, which assembles JAC brand cars, mainly from other countries. But there is no evidence that it exports any significant part of its production to the United States or Canada.
On Tuesday, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, said she shares the concerns of the US about Mexico acting as a back door for China to import cheap goods into the North American market ahead of the review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement in 2026.
Freeland said members of the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden, and supporters and advisers of President Trump, have expressed great concern to him about this issue and Canada shares them.
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