Chinese firms invested billions of dollars on Mexican factories to make products for the American market, shipping goods tariff-free under a U.S. trade agreement now in peril
Su Xiuyong moved to Mexico from central China 20 months ago. He doesn’t speak Spanish or English, and finds that he hates the food, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.
Su’s employer, a Shenzhen-based construction company, helped set up Chinese factories south of the U.S.-Mexico border, part of a business boom triggered in 2018 by President Trump’s first round of tariffs on Chinese imports. Su said his firm, Jilian Engineering, can build a small factory in as little as seven months in Mexico.
Chinese companies have kept many goods flowing to the U.S. by manufacturing in Mexico, where products ship to the U.S. tariff-free under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term. Chinese firms have invested billions of dollars in hundreds of Mexican factories that make auto parts, electronics, home appliances, furniture, medical equipment and other products for the American market.
