Value-Added in Gross Export Value: A Better Metric to Understand Trade Flows Between the United States and Mexico

Abstract

NAFTA has been consistent with a trade surplus for Mexico over the U.S. according to traditional international trade statistics. However, using a bilateral input-output table that allows calculating each country’s value-added in exports, the trade balance between these two partners is modified. The flow of value-added in gross exports from Mexico to the U.S. reaches 164.4 billion dollars while the same from the U.S. to Mexico is 188.7 billion. The disaggregation of value-added highlights an important difference between domestic and foreign components incorporated in exports, because while for the U.S. the foreign value added in its exports reaches 2.5 billion, in the case of Mexico this concept is 50.2 billion. It is more than 20 times the U.S. figure. A directly derived conclusion from this is that during NAFTA an important part of the income from Mexican exports was used to remunerate productive factors used in the U.S. via imports. Another is that any modification of the NAFTA (related to a foreign content increase) will imply for Mexico a lower net income of foreign currency for each dollar exported. Consequently, foreign trade will have a smaller multiplier effect on Mexican domestic activity, given the bilateral exports boost will leak indirectly to the U.S.