Some analysists say that, among Mexican industry, the auto sector of Mexico is the the one has benefited the most from North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The challenge to Mexico from a U.S. manufacturing perspective is that this country has grabbed the lion’s share of new capacity for manufacturing those smaller cars within NAFTA. The implications for the U.S. plastics industry are still playing out.

According to the Mexican auto industry association AMIA, Mexico has its vehicle production tripled, 1.1 million vehicles to more than 3.3 million, right after the start of NAFTA in 1994.

AMIA also said, at the same time, the total number of vehicles made in the U.S. has declined, from 12.2 million to 11.6 million. Meanwhile, Canada has held steady at about 2.3 million. 

The U.S Federal Reserve presented at conference in Texas in 2015 on Mexico - U.S. manufacturing that Mexico has gone from 6% of the North American light vehicle production in 1990 to 20% in 2014. By the contrast, the U.S. has dropped from 78% to 67% of light vehicle production in that time. 

However, some analysists say Mexico does not threat directly to the U.S auto industry at the moment since the U.S. capacity is filling up with trucks and larger vehicles. According to the data from Automotive News, the U.S. light vehicle production grew 660,000 units in 2014, while Mexico only added 280.000 vehicles. Besides, the U.S. production grew by another 437,062 vehicles — for a total of 11.8 million passenger vehicles in 2015. Meanwhile, Mexico added. 255,422 vehicles for a total of 3.4 million.

Therefore, we can see that the United States still remains the source of most auto production in NAFTA, but over the last decade, Mexico has seen much faster growth as more assembly plants come on line.

(According to Plastics News)