Mexico in the China-United States Geoeconomic Triangle: USMCA, Industrial Policy and Productive Security Regionalism

Abstract

This article examines the Mexico-China economic relationship in the context of U.S.-China geoeconomic rivalry, U.S. tariff policy and the 2026 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The core argument is that Mexico faces a dual transition: on the one hand, an opportunity to benefit from supplychain reconfiguration, nearshoring and North American demand for manufactured goods; on the other hand, the risk of becoming a channel for the triangulation of Chinese inputs under a regional regime increasingly organized around economic security, traceability and trusted origin. Drawing on a qualitative case study, 2021-2025 trade data and a state-of-the-art review of global value chains, industrial policy, geoeconomics, the developmental state, the Belt and Road Initiative and security regionalism, the article introduces the concept of productive security regionalism to explain the new phase of USMCA governance. The theoretical contribution is to connect the literature on weaponized interdependence and economic security with Latin American debates on autonomy, development and industrial policy. The article concludes that Mexico should neither replicate the Chinese model nor mechanically join the Belt and Road Initiative. Instead, it should build its own strategy of selective industrialization, logistics infrastructure, origin compliance, Asian diversification and state-business coordination.