Fear and uncertainty are spreading rapidly among Chinese-owned businesses in Mexico following President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement of a 25% tariff on imports from the Latin American country.<\/p>\n
In areas that once hosted Chinese delegations almost daily\u2014such as the industrial parks in Monterrey, the northern manufacturing hub\u2014new factories had begun sprouting up within months on land purchased by visitors. However, earlier this year, this trend started to slow.<\/p>\n
This shift follows Trump’s election campaign promise to halt Chinese-backed factories in Mexico from sending duty-free cars to the U.S. by imposing a 100% tariff\u2014a policy that has yet to be implemented.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of them have switched to waiting and watching,\u201d said an executive at a Chinese-funded factory in Monterrey, who requested anonymity. Speaking to the South China Morning Post<\/em>, the executive added, \u201c[Trump] talks a lot; it depends on how he does it.\u201d<\/p>\n The wave of Chinese companies entering Mexico began during Trump\u2019s trade war with China in his first term. High tariffs on Chinese goods benefitted Mexico, where products meeting certain rules of origin could enter the U.S. market tariff-free with much lower freight costs.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I were advising Chinese companies currently considering investing in Mexico, my advice\u2014unlike what I did during the six years I was in China trying to bring investment to Mexico\u2014would be to \u2018stop and wait,\u2019\u201d said Jorge Guajardo, Mexico\u2019s former ambassador to China and now a partner at DGA Group, a global business consulting firm.<\/p>\n \u201cMy thinking about Chinese companies in Mexico is that \u2018Made by China\u2019 is the new \u2018Made in China,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fear and uncertainty are spreading rapidly among Chinese-owned businesses in Mexico following President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement of a 25% tariff on imports from the Latin American country. In areas that once hosted Chinese delegations almost daily\u2014such as the industrial parks in Monterrey, the northern manufacturing hub\u2014new factories had begun sprouting up within months on land […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[529,3948,319,3949,3950,1659,2346,787],"class_list":["post-6392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diplomacy","tag-china","tag-chinese-investment-in-mexico","tag-donald-trump","tag-duty-free-cars","tag-made-by-china","tag-mexico","tag-tariff","tag-trade-war"],"yoast_head":"\n