Mexico is likely to overtake Canada as the top destination for US products, according to new research by CoBank reported by World Grain.
In 2024, US export sales to Mexico totalled US$31.4bn, slightly below Canada at US$32.4bn, the 2 May report said.
However, with US food and agricultural exports to Mexico increasing by 65% in the last four years, Mexico is expected to overtake Canada this year, according to CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange.
The growth had been spurred by the booming post-COVID Mexican economy, boosted by a rapidly growing manufacturing sector, CoBank said.
US food and agricultural producers are helping meet Mexico’s growing demand for more meat, poultry, dairy, processed foods and feed grains, according to the research.
“The rise of Mexico as a customer has been a huge success story for US agriculture,” CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange director Rob Fox was quoted as saying.
“But a few risk factors are developing that could slow the pace of additional growth. Mexico’s economy has been slowing, and the unusually strong peso over the last couple of years has weakened by about 15% since early 2024. Mexican consumers’ purchasing power will be more challenged in 2025.”
Since 2020, Mexico’s share of all US agricultural exports increased from 11.2% to 16.4%, World Grain wrote.
On a volume basis, corn, pork, dairy products, soyabeans and poultry products make up the top five US commodities purchased by Mexico, according to USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA) data.
At US$13.9bn, grain, feed, oilseeds and related products comprise the largest category of US agricultural exports to Mexico, according to the report.
In 2024, the grain export volume to Mexico increased by 27% to 41.98M tonnes.
Strong recent growth was mainly due to rising feed demand for the country’s expanding animal protein industry and severe drought, which was limiting domestic crop yields and grazing conditions, World Grain wrote.
Against a backdrop ongoing trade tensions between the USA and China, Mexico will almost certainly overtake China as the largest export market for US grain, feed and oilseeds in 2025, according to the report.
