Overview
- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spoke by video call on Wednesday after Lutnick could not complete his flight to Mexico because of weather.
- Mexico’s economy minister Marcelo Ebrard, who joined the conversation, described the exchange as cordial and said the talk will be useful for ongoing commercial negotiations.
- No immediate rollbacks of U.S. tariffs were announced; the discussion centered on Section 232 duties that include a 25% charge on many vehicles and higher levies on certain steel and aluminum imports.
- Ebrard said he will travel to Washington to continue bilateral talks, and teams are preparing a fourth round of T‑MEC review talks in September with no public agreement yet on dates.
- The talks take place as tensions between the United States and Canada escalate, raising the stakes for trilateral T‑MEC talks and putting pressure on Mexico to seek tariff relief that could affect auto and metal supply chains.