Mexico’s Foreign Trade Regulatory Commission (Cocex) will increase its control on exports of certain steel products to the US, to avoid the latter’s tariffs, on Mexican steel imports. Cocex is a division of Mexico’s Ministry of Economy.
According to media reports, the Mexican Federal government approved an agreement through Cocex that enables surveillance of the country’s steel exports, especially the four categories which fall under the US tariffs. They include standard tubes, mechanical tubes, slabs, and rebars.
Mexico uses a statistical monitoring export scheme for 64 categories of steel, and the government believes that separating the four products will help the US track shipments from Mexico easily. These measures are being taken in order to avoid any situation which could resemble the North American tariff war over aluminum that is currently underway, among the US and Canada.
The Ministry of Economy had not responded to queries from Davis Index about the matter by the time of publication.
Exports to the US
Mexico’s steel exports to the US fell by 8.7pc to 217,888mt in June this year, from 238,790mt in the same month of 2019, according to data from the United States Census Bureau.
Mexican exports of alloy steel products to the US also dipped by 66.8pc to 29,645mt in June, from 89,419mt in the prior-year period. However, exports of carbon non-alloy steel products rose by 27.7pc to 186,246mt from 145,765mt in the same month under comparison.
Mexico’s crude steel production fell by 21.4pc to 1.1mn mt in June this year, from 1.4mn mt produced in the same period last year.