Ten months after Mexico began charging a 50 per cent duty on imported cars from nations it has no trade agreement with, China among them, one major carmaker has changed where it sources vehicles, The Rio Times reports.
The levy, part of a law passed by the Senate in December 2025 that raised duties on 1,463 tariff lines, has applied since 1 January, with cars under 1.0 litre exempt. Hyundai has switched supply of its Creta SUV for Mexico from Indonesia to Vietnam, a member of the CPTPP Pacific trade pact, with Vietnamese-built cars arriving since August.
Despite the tariff, Mexico sold a record 1,144,002 new light vehicles from January to September, up 5 per cent. On 13 October the government suspended its 10 per cent duty on car assembly parts for five years, leaving the car tariff unchanged.
Source: The Rio Times
