Mexico reinstates tariff hikes ranging from 5% to 50% on over 544 products across a range of categories including textiles, footwear. These tariff increases will primarily affect imports from countries with which Mexico does not have free trade agreements and which are significant exporters of these products, such as India, and China.

The tariffs — which took effect on Tuesday — will apply for two years, according to the decree, which was issued by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O and Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro.

Products from countries with which Mexico has trade agreements — including the United States, Canada, European Union nations and CTPPP signatories such as Australia, Chile, and Vietnam — will not be affected by the new tariffs.

Buenrostro said Tuesday that the government’s aim is to “prevent unfair competition.”

“We have seen a lot of products coming into the country at a very low price and displacing our national producers,” she said at a Council of the Americas event in Mexico City.

“The prices for the public don’t go down, but cheap imports are displacing textile makers, footwear makers and other manufacturers,” Buenrostro said.

The economy minister said that the imports of concern come from countries with which Mexico doesn’t have trade agreements. She didn’t specifically mention China but did say that the “undervalued” imports mainly come from Asia.

“In the marriage between Mexico and the United States, there is no place for a Chinese lover,” the economist and journalist began his column, published Wednesday.

The former Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, now a member of presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez’s campaign team, has predicted that China will be “the main issue” when Mexico, the United States and Canada review their free trade agreement, the USMCA, in 2026.