Mexico is moving toward tariffs to protect strategic industries.

The Mexican government is seeking to impose tariffs on more than 1,400 sectors such as automotive, steel, textiles, aluminum, footwear, plastics, motorcycles, trailers, and glass, among others, through the Mexican Industrial Protection Program , presented through a legislative initiative.

The objective of this measure is to comply with the provisions of Plan Mexico , protect national industry in strategic sectors, replace imports from Asia with domestic production, and improve the country’s trade balance, the Ministry of Economy (SE) emphasized .

The proposal calls for a tariff increase of 1,463 tariff items , protection for 19 strategic industrial sectors, and an impact on $52 billion in imports and 8.6% of total national imports.

The measure, which seeks to impose taxes of up to 50% , will apply to countries that do not have a trade agreement with Mexico.

In accordance with the initiative’s criteria, imports of final goods and inputs were selected. Furthermore, efforts were made to avoid generating inflationary pressures and to respect World Trade Organization (WTO) tariff ceilings .

“This measure aims to replace imports with domestic production, generating thousands of jobs. It also protects 325,000 jobs that were at risk in these strategic industries, which are located in the country’s major industrial and manufacturing centers, such as Nuevo León, Jalisco, the State of Mexico, Mexico City, Querétaro, among others,” the document stated.

On September 9, during the presentation of the details of the 2026 Economic Package , Carlos Lerma Cotera, Undersecretary of Revenue at the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) , explained that the Ministry of Finance conducted a comprehensive analysis to assess the impact on value chains.

The official noted that, meanwhile, the SHCP collaborated in the study of potential inflationary effects, and indicated that approximately 70 billion pesos (mdp) in additional import taxes are being considered.

According to the General Economic Policy Criteria, these revenues are projected to increase by 40.7% by 2026, reaching 254.8 billion pesos.

Lerma reiterated that the goal is to reduce the trade deficit in some goods , especially those where the gap between what is bought and sold abroad has doubled in the last year.

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