La Jornada: Historic amount of exports and imports

Exports and imports in Mexico registered historically high figures in April, revealed the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), when releasing the merchandise trade balance report.

Exports reached 72.42 million dollars, the highest level since records have been kept, and an annual increase of 32.6 percent compared to April 2025.

As for imports, these totaled 67,521.8 million dollars, also a figure that broke records and reflects an annual advance of 24.1 percent, Inegi stated.

The United States remains a central market for Mexican goods. 83.6 percent of the 72.42 million dollars exported by Mexico in April went to that country.

An increase of 32.6 percent in the value of exports had not been seen since May 2021. This performance was mainly driven by the sale of non-oil merchandise, which grew 33.5 percent annually.

Manufacturing exports advanced 34 percent, while non-automotive exports grew 45.8; automotive, 8.2, and extractives, 71 percent. Oil sales registered an increase of 7.9 percent.

In the period January-April 2026, the value of total exports totaled 247,628 million dollars, an amount that represented an annual growth of 21.8 percent, due to the growth of 23.4 percent in non-oil exports and a decrease of 17.2 in oil exports.

In the first four months of 2026, the value structure of merchandise remittances was manufactured goods, 91.1 percent; agricultural, 3.3 percent; non-petroleum extractives, 3 percent, and petroleum products, 2.6 percent.

“The performance of non-automotive manufacturing stands out, which has compensated for various sources of weakness; while the automotive sector shows signs of deceleration in an environment of high uncertainty due to the review of the T-MEC trilateral trade pact,” said the analysis area of ​​Valmex Casa de Bolsa.

Mexican purchases gain momentum

In April 2026, the value of merchandise imports was 67,522 million dollars, a record level, and represented an annual rebound of 24.1 percent.

Purchases of foreign consumer goods reached 8,499 million dollars, a figure that represented an annual increase of 7.7 percent. This rate resulted from an 11 percent increase in imports of non-oil consumer goods and a 5.3 percent drop in oil products (gasoline, butane and propane).

Intermediate goods worth 54,228 million dollars were imported, a level 29.8 percent higher than that reported in April of last year. In turn, this figure derived from an advance of 31.9 percent in imports of non-petroleum products of intermediate use and of 3.8 percent in those of petroleum goods of intermediate use.

Imports of capital goods reached 4,794 million dollars, which implied an annual increase of 1.3 percent.

In the first four months of 2026, the accumulated value of total imports was 244.12 billion dollars, 19.9 percent more than that observed in the same period of 2025. Non-oil purchases rose 21.5 percent and oil purchases, only 1.1 percent annually.

Thus, Mexico registered a trade surplus of 4,520 million dollars, which compares with the 5,932 million dollars reported in March. For the first quarter of 2026, the trade balance presented a surplus of 3,508 million dollars. In the same period of 2025, it reported a deficit of $314 million.

Valmex maintains that “the persistence of the surplus will depend on the ability to deepen the export dynamics outside the automotive segment, advance the geographical diversification of trade flows and strengthen national content within global value chains.”