BLACKETT. May 29, 2026

The bilateral wrapping this afternoon was supposed to be the first formal step toward the July 1 review, but the way it's structured says more than what's on the agenda. Canada is on neither track, and Mexico's April export print already settled the question the table is debating.

Goettman and Ebrard close two days of talks this afternoon at the Ministry of Economy, sixty business reps and a bipartisan House Ways and Means delegation in the room. Greer wasn't, he was pulled to a White House cabinet meeting Wednesday morning and the round opened without him.

The agenda is specific, economic security and rules of origin for industrial goods, auto, steel, aluminum, critical minerals. Ebrard told reporters Wednesday that the 50% tariff on Mexican steel and aluminum is "unsustainable and unjustified," with Mexico working through 52 US demands and 12 of its own going the other way.

Canada wasn't in any of those rooms, and there's no confirmed bilateral date for Ottawa to get into one.

Round 2 runs Washington on June 16-17, agriculture and "level playing field," Round 3 lands in Mexico City the week of July 20. USTR's own framing is that the review will be "more bilateral than trilateral" because the US sees Canada issues and Mexico issues that don't really overlap.

Janice Charette, Canada's chief negotiator, has said publicly she doesn't expect resolution by July 1, and LeBlanc only just re-engaged with the Trump administration after near-zero contact since October. Canada operates today under 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos non-compliant with USMCA, plus a 35% tariff on non-USMCA-compliant goods active since August 2025. 85% of Canada-US trade still moves tariff-free, which is why nobody's in a hurry to fix the rest.

April exports hit $72.04 billion, the highest monthly figure in INEGI's records going back to 1980. Non-oil exports up 33.5% year over year, 83% headed to the US, light vehicles at 286,317 units. Q1 FDI hit a record $23,591 million with US capital alone at $10,210 million, up 23.3%.

The piece that matters isn't the headline though. Intermediate goods imports rose 31.9% and sit at 80% of Mexico's total imports, which means Mexico isn't exporting finished product to American shelves, it's operating as the manufacturing node where American and Asian intermediate goods get value added before crossing back north.

Canada is moving the other way. The Bank of Canada published a study Sunday showing Vancouver's centrality in global port networks fell from 0.75% to 0.16% between 2016 and 2023, with dwell times up 16.3%, and a $3.6 billion port expansion that won't land before 2030.

The supply chain leader with Mexican Tier 1 capacity is looking at rules that change in July and lock in for 16 years, which means Q3 Tier 2 sourcing decisions get locked in before the rules do.

The procurement organization with cross-border volume through Canada is reading the absence of a Canada-US bilateral date as the signal that whatever protections survive get written by the US with Mexico in the room and Ottawa outside.

The executive weighing North American capex is looking at the same Q1 FDI record into Mexico the global investor base is looking at, and the case for waiting on political certainty closed six weeks early.

National dry van spot rates sit at $2.89 per mile fuel inclusive, the highest level since 2022, with tender rejection rates at 13-14%, levels not seen consistently since the post-COVID unwind. Carriers have pricing power for the first time in three years.

What's unusual is that diesel is moving the other way. EIA's week of May 25 print showed national on-highway diesel at $5.523 per gallon, down 7.3 cents, the first weekly decline in months, with Brent off 19% over May and WTI off 16.5%. In most cycles fuel down means freight cost down, but this cycle freight cost isn't budging.

The mechanism is capacity, not fuel. SONAR Carrier Net Revocations are running 31% above the same period in 2025, new operating authority issuances are down 22% in recent weeks, and the FMCSA CDL crackdown that started last summer is shrinking the driver pool in real time. Bankruptcies kept rolling through May at carriers of every size, from 92-year-old Standard Forwarding Freight winding down 14 terminals to small fleets liquidating under Chapter 7.

For the shipper budgeting Q3 transport spend on the assumption that diesel relief passes through to freight cost relief, the math is going to miss. Fuel surcharge adjusts automatically, linehaul doesn't, and contracts up for renewal this summer are being negotiated by carriers who finally have leverage and shippers still pricing as if it were 2024.

China's $17 billion agro commitment runs in the background of Round 2 The fact sheet from Trump's May 14-15 Beijing state visit landed at least $17 billion a year in US agricultural purchases through 2028, plus 425 beef facility renewals and 77 new ones, with rare earths export controls suspended until November 10 under the Busan APEC agreement. When agriculture moves to the table in Washington June 16-17, the US comparison case has concrete numbers attached that weren't there in March.

ANTAC is signaling another blockade before the World Cup opens The transporters' association and the farmland front are messaging a new round of mobilizations before the tournament opens June 11. April's hit 20 states, November 2025's hit 25 and cut customs corridors for days. Q1 cargo theft stayed concentrated, with 82% of incidents in ten states and State of Mexico plus Puebla together accounting for nearly a third. For freight moving Bajío to Laredo or through Manzanillo in June, contingency routing belongs on the desk this week.

Manzanillo's structural congestion is the other side of Mexico's export record The port handles 41% of Mexico's containerized cargo and roughly 4,000 truck movements a day. Last May's customs strike pushed berth wait times to 1.8 days, the highest of 2025, and recovery took weeks. With April export volumes at historic highs and intermediate imports at 80% of total, the chokepoint handling a plurality of containerized flow has less room for absorption than the headline numbers suggest.

BLACKETT.