Marking the biggest growth of any U.S. food and agricultural export market, Mexico has surged 65% over the past four years and is quickly catching up to Canada. Export sales to Mexico reached $31.4 billion in 2024, slightly below Canada, the top market at $32.4 billion. Given recent trends, Mexico will likely surpass Canada for the first time and claim the top spot in 2025.
The growth has been spurred by the booming post-COVID Mexican economy, buoyed by a rapidly growing manufacturing sector. The economic boom has allowed consumers to expand their traditional diet, and U.S. food and agricultural producers are helping meet Mexico’s growing demand for more meat, poultry, dairy, processed foods and feed grains.
Since 2020, Mexico’s share of all U.S. agricultural exports rose from 11.2% to 16.4%. On a volume basis, corn, pork, dairy products, soybeans, and poultry products make up the top five U.S. commodities purchased by Mexico, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.
The rise of Mexico as a customer has been a huge success story for U.S. agriculture, but risk factors are emerging in the near-term. Mexico’s economy has been slowing and the unusually strong peso in 2023 and 2024, dubbed the “super peso,” has weakened by about 15% since early 2024. Combined with a slowing economy – the International Monetary Fund forecasts the Mexican economy to shrink by 0.3% in 2025. Mexican consumer purchasing power will likely be challenged in 2025.
Grains
At $13.9 billion, grain, feed, oilseeds, and related products is the largest category of exports to Mexico. Two factors are primarily driving the strong recent growth in this category: feed demand for the expanding domestic pork, chicken and beef industries, combined with an ongoing severe drought that began in 2023, and which continues to limit domestic crop yields and grazing conditions. Domestic corn production in 2024 was down 16% from 2022 levels.
Given the ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China, Mexico will almost certainly overtake China as the largest export market for U.S. grain, feed, and oilseeds in 2025. As Mexico faces ongoing drought, with limited areas for grain production and an expanding livestock sector, it will need to import more grain and feed ingredients to fill its domestic supply deficit.
Meat and poultry
Source: USDA PSD Online, CoBank calculations
Although Mexico’s domestic meat and poultry production continues to climb at a healthy clip, consumption is expanding so quickly that imports are increasing as well. We expect this trend to continue in the coming years.
Dairy
At $2.5 billion in export sales, Mexico is by far the largest destination for U.S. dairy products and almost twice the size of the second largest, China. Total U.S. dairy export value to Mexico has risen by 76% since 2020, driven mostly by Mexico’s steadily increasing appetite for cheese, which has grown 3.3% per capita on average over the past decade. Ample runway remains for cheese exports as Mexican per capita consumption is only 11 pounds versus 42 pounds in the U.S.
Processed agriculture products
Source: USDA-FAS GATS April 2025
Mexico is also a sizeable importer of a wide array of packaged food and related processed agricultural products. The bulk of this is made up of consumer-packaged goods, specifically bakery and confectionery items. Other categories include fresh fruit and vegetables ($1.4 billion), sweeteners ($1.2 billion), processed fruit and vegetables ($900 million), and tree nuts ($360 million).
Impact of trade
Over the past decade, cross border trade of food and agricultural products between the U.S. and Mexico has doubled to $80 billion. Of the $49 billion in U.S. imports of Mexican products, fresh fruit and vegetables ($18.8 billion), alcoholic beverages ($11.6 billion), and processed food ($10.8 billion), make up the top three categories.
Although free trade agreements have fallen out of favor in recent years, it is hard to see the high degree of interconnectedness in food systems between U.S. and Mexico as anything but a “win-win” for both countries. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 (later replaced by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement), food and agricultural trade between the three countries has risen nearly ten-fold in dollar terms. Consumers on both sides of the border benefit from a wider array of food choices at lower prices than they would without free trade.
