The upper house of the Mexican congress, dominated by the ruling political party, rejected claims that steel exported from Mexico to the United States affects the US steel market and requested dialogue with their US counterparts.
"The Senate of the Republic rejects that Mexican steel exports affect the US market. Mexico has openly collaborated with the United States to defend the sector against triangulation and unfair practices," the Senate reported in a press release.
The statement was made a week after four senators from both US political parties sent another letter to the Biden administration to request that the 25 percent tariff on Mexican steel to be reinstated.
Senators Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Mike Braun (R-Indiana) and Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), who signed the petition, are asking to stop an alleged triangulation of Chinese steel to the United States through Mexico.
They are asking to apply Section 232 of the United States Trade Expansion Act, which empowers the president to regulate its foreign trade in the face of a threat to national security.
“Mexico is not a bridge or vertex for the triangulation of Chinese steel products. The only data they repeat is that Mexico exported 2.3 million metric tons (mt) of finished steel products to the United States and Mexico imported 4.1 million mt from the United States. It is unacceptable that they say that we put their economy at risk,” said the Mexican senate.
According to statistics seen by SteelOrbis, Mexico's total steel trade with the United States is in deficit, at least in 2023 and in the first half of 2024. In 2022, Mexico was in surplus. In those three years, Mexico is in deficit in finished steel products and in semi-finished products, Mexico is in surplus.