“China has increased its global exports from 3.8 per cent to 14 per cent in just 22 years, and this increase has largely come at North America’s expense,” Ramirez de la O said.
Meanwhile, the region’s share of global exports “has fallen from 19 per cent in 2000 to 13 per cent in 2022”, he added.
Ramirez de la O offered the critical observations during an event in the Mexican city of San Luis Potosi attended by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and incoming economy minister Marcelo Ebrard.
Over the period from 2000 to 2022, China’s share of global GDP surged by more than 15 per cent while North American countries experienced a decline, Ramirez de la O said.
“It is only logical to expect that both Americans and Mexicans demand our fair share of this global demand.”
Ramirez de la O believed the government had to make Mexicans aware that “it is necessary to produce more than we consume because we are heavily dependent on the Chinese for basic products for our households”.
This is why “we are now considering making changes to investment policy and paying more attention to foreign investment, focusing on production policy”, he said.
Canada depends on China for 13.5 per cent of all its consumption, he said, describing US dependence as even higher at 16.5 per cent and Mexico’s at 19.6 per cent.
In contrast, Ramírez de la O noted, China was only 8.8 per cent dependent on imports from North America.
Ebrard, a former Mexican foreign minister whom Sheinbaum has chosen to handle the country’s economy portfolio, reiterated Ramirez de la O’s message.
He hailed the fact that the US is Mexico’s main trading partner and said he planned to continue integrating the two economies when Sheinbaum takes office in October.
Tensions between Beijing and Washington have recently sharpened American scrutiny of Mexico’s relationship with China.
“They’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything,” said Trump. “We have long been taken advantage of by other countries. And think of it, oftentimes these other countries are considered so-called allies. They’ve taken advantage of us for years.”