The United States and Mexico share one of the world’s most productive and strategically aligned manufacturing partnerships. This new report from Global Electronics Association explores how deeply integrated electronics supply chains between the two nations drive U.S. industrial strength, job growth, and national security. With Mexico now serving as a major production hub and re-export platform for electronics, maintaining tariff-free access is essential to sustaining America’s competitiveness and reducing reliance on geopolitical rivals.
However, new tariffs threaten to disrupt this integration—raising costs, slowing innovation, and undermining reshoring efforts across critical industries like defense, aerospace, and semiconductors. The report calls for a renewed U.S.–Mexico trade agreement that safeguards tariff-free electronics trade while strengthening joint enforcement mechanisms, positioning North America as a unified industrial bloc capable of meeting global challenges.
The report highlights recent developments. For example, in February 2025, the federal government officially unveiled Project Kutsari, naming it a central pillar of its broader Plan México economic agenda. The first phase: the creation of a National Semiconductor Design Center and satellite hubs in Puebla, Jalisco, and Sonora.
Mexico still imports more than USD 20 billion of semiconductors annually, and Kutsari aims to plug that gap by combining in-country design, patent reform, and public-private R&D.
For nearshoring in U.S. electronics, Kutsari sends a signal: Mexico is no longer only a low-cost assembly node and is shifting upstream and aligning with
CHIPS-era ambitions.
