Recently, a Mexican newspaper revealed that between 2018 and 2024, Mexico captured nearly one-fourth of the import market share in the United States that China lost. The newspaper joyfully declared, “China’s loss is Mexico’s gain.”
This report indicates that the tariff policies of U.S. President Trump have had a profound impact on the international trade order, causing the U.S. and China to drift further apart in an irreversible direction.
According to the English version of Mexico News Daily published on September 22nd, data from Mexico’s Ministry of Finance (SHCP) showed that Mexico “captured” 24% of the U.S. import market share lost by China between 2018 and 2024.
These statistics were included in the 93-page budget proposal submitted to the Mexican Congress at the beginning of this month by the SHCP.
The SHCP document noted that from 2018 to 2024, China’s exports to the U.S. decreased by 18.5%, dropping from $538.5 billion in 2018 to $438.95 billion in 2024. China’s market share in the U.S. import market decreased by 7.8 percentage points to 13.4%.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s market share in the U.S. import market increased by two percentage points to reach 15.5%. In 2023, Mexico surpassed China to become the largest exporter to the U.S., maintaining an enviable position since then.
Yao Yuan, a professor at St. Thomas University’s International Studies seminar, expressed his admiration, stating, “Tariffs are indeed quite useful,” referring to President Trump’s tariff policy towards China.
Starting in 2018 during his first term, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on Chinese goods. The Biden administration continued Trump’s tariff policy, and in his second term, Trump further increased tariffs on Chinese goods by 20%. As the U.S.-China tariff war escalated, Trump briefly imposed a 145% tariff on China before a temporary truce was reached and tariff numbers reduced. Currently, the total U.S. tariff on Chinese goods is 55%.
Yao Yuan explained, “To be honest, in the past, although there was only a 25% tariff, these factories gradually moved out of China. At this stage, tariffs start at 50%, and there are even additional tariffs on top. Therefore, the likelihood of Chinese products being directly exported to the U.S. has greatly decreased, which is why most of these products have been replaced by Mexico.”
However, Yao Yuan also cautioned that some Mexican products might have Chinese capital behind them, and there are instances of Chinese products being “reshipped through Mexico and then rebranded for entry into the U.S.,” prompting the U.S. to continue pressuring Mexico to change this situation.
Under pressure from the U.S., the Mexican government announced on September 10th that it would impose tariffs of up to 50% on 1400 products from China and other Asian countries to assist in U.S. efforts to plug loopholes.
Mexico News Daily reported that the SHCP believes that with the recent increase in U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, Mexico now has “greater opportunities to capture a larger share of the U.S. import market.”
The SHCP stated that as of July, the effective tariff rate on Mexican imports into the U.S. was 4.7%, one of the “lowest rates among U.S. trading partners”. Additionally, in July, 81% of Mexican exports to the U.S. were not subject to tariffs, falling within the regulations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The data from the Mexican Ministry of Finance was also corroborated by the 2025 U.S.-China Economic Report issued by the Anderson Forecast Center at the University of California, Los Angeles in April this year. The report was commissioned by Cathay United Bank from Taiwan, with Dr. Yu Wei-Hsiung being one of the authors.
This 2025 U.S.-China Economic Report indicated that the proportion of U.S. imports from China decreased from 22% in 2017 to 13% in 2024, a decrease of 9 percentage points.
During the same period, the proportion of U.S. imports from Mexico increased from about 13.4% in 2017 to 15.5% in 2024, a growth of over 2 percentage points. The proportion of U.S. imports from Vietnam also rose from about 2% in 2017 to 4.2% in 2024, a similar increase of over 2 percentage points. These two countries together captured nearly half of the U.S. market share lost by China.
Professor Fan Jiazhong from the Department of Economics at National Taiwan University told Epoch Times that Trump’s 1.0 tariff policy, which targeted the Communist Party, resulted in two effects: the relocation of production bases by Chinese manufacturers to avoid U.S. tariffs, and the practice of “transshipment,” in which intermediate goods or nearly finished products are shipped to a third country, re-labeled, with Vietnam and Mexico being the two most important countries assisting in this process for Chinese goods.
He added that in Trump’s 2.0 phase, the implementation of “reciprocal tariffs” globally became more stringent, especially upgrading tariffs on China. Fan highlighted that in recent years, as China’s economy has declined and the overall operating and business environment has worsened, many companies that were previously operating in China, including Chinese ones, have moved out, resulting in a clear downward trend in China’s exports to the U.S.
Yao Yuan stated that the “core reason” for China losing the U.S. market is that the relationship between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party has shifted “from cooperation to competition, and even close to a situation resembling a Cold War,” which is evident not only in tariffs but also in U.S. restrictions on exporting certain technologies to China.
According to the latest statistical data, in the first half of 2025, the total trade volume between China and the U.S. was $289.3 billion, a 10% decrease compared to the same period last year; China’s exports to the U.S. totaled $215.5 billion, an 11% decrease annually, while China’s imports from the U.S. amounted to $73.8 billion, an 8.7% annual decline.
In June, China’s exports to the U.S. even plummeted by a significant 21.6%, reflecting the strong impact of Trump’s tariffs.
The 2025 U.S.-China Economic Report from the Anderson Forecast Center stated that under the high pressure of Trump’s tariffs, China’s exports to the U.S. are expected to decrease significantly. While the future structure of U.S.-China economic relations is hard to predict, the trend of further disengagement between the two economic systems is already apparent.
Fan believes that the increasing U.S.-China decoupling will become more severe and all-encompassing, with the trend evolving into a “comprehensive decoupling” that will extend to all goods and services over time. He emphasized that this process will take some time to fully develop.
Throughout this decoupling process, Fan predicted a definite decline in U.S.-China trade volume. China’s exports to the U.S. will undoubtedly decrease, with the exports shifting to other third-party regions.
Fan also pointed out, “China’s dumping problem is still very serious. Not only is the U.S. affected, but also countries in the European Union, Asia, Southeast Asia, and third-world countries, including Latin America, all countries without restrictions on importing from China are impacted to differing extents.”
The U.S.-China Economic Report also suggested that if other countries do not introduce new measures to protect domestic industries or adjust trade imbalances, China may continue to expand its exports to other regions. In comparison to 2014, China’s trade surplus with Asia increased from 10% to 26% in 2024, with Europe rising from 31% to 51%, North America (U.S. and Canada) from 131% to 171%, and Latin America from 7% to 15%.
However, Fan believed that other global markets would not be able to absorb China’s excess capacity and dumping practices, leading to a continuous escalation of trade frictions. He expressed confidence that amidst this process, the entire international trade order is being restructured and altered, diverging from the globalization era, though a new equilibrium has yet to emerge.
While U.S.-China trade volume is expected to continue decreasing, and comprehensive decoupling lies ahead for the U.S. and China, Fan suggested that China might increase trade with countries like Russia, forming a cycle. In contrast, liberal Western countries represent a market economy cycle. He warned that the phenomenon of decoupling between these two cycles will become increasingly apparent in the future.