Nearshoring To Mexico: Where It Is Real And Where It Is Still Mostly Hype

Nearshoring to Mexico shows up everywhere in 2025: in earnings calls, political speeches, and glossy investment decks. For logistics teams, the harder question is simpler: where has production truly moved, and where are you still shipping “China plus one” parts through new routes? This post looks at the latest trade and container data, and suggests practical ways for LSPs and shippers to separate durable nearshoring shifts from short term tariff workarounds.

TL;DR

Nearshoring to Mexico is real, especially in autos, electronics and cross border trucking. Mexico is now the United States’ largest trading partner by value, and its share of US trade keeps rising.
At the same time, US manufacturing remains heavily reliant on Asian low cost countries. Imports from Asia are growing faster than US output again, and many “nearshored” products still contain Chinese components.
For LSPs and shippers, the opportunity is not to bet on slogans, but to track specific flows: which SKUs really shift origin, which lanes move from ocean to cross border truck, and where new bottlenecks appear at the land border.

1. The nearshoring narrative is very loud

Executives are not imagining the pressure to regionalize.

A recent North American cut of the Trade in Transition 2025 survey (Economist Impact with DP World) reports that half of North American executives rank geographical diversification as their top supply chain strategy, ahead of the global average.¹
PwC’s 2025 outlook for industrial products finds that 90 percent of leaders believe companies still relying on distant suppliers in 2030 “will be extinct by 2035,” and 92 percent say advanced automation makes reshoring or nearshoring more viable. About one third say they are already pursuing strategic or aggressive reshoring.²
Kearney’s 2025 Reshoring Index survey shows the share of CEOs planning to reshore part of their operations in the next three years rising by 15 percent year over year, with geopolitical risk now a core motivator rather than a side topic.³

On paper, it looks like a wave. Board decks talk about “regional hubs,” “friendshoring,” and “China plus one” strategies. For freight forwarders and shippers, it can feel like your network will be turned inside out any month now.

The problem is that the physical flows have not changed as quickly as the rhetoric.

2. Trade and container data give a colder reality check

Kearney titled its 2025 Reshoring Index “The great reality check,” and the numbers justify the phrase. Despite record announcements, the index swung sharply back into negative territory.

The manufacturing import ratio that Kearney tracks rose 9 percent as imports from fourteen Asian low cost countries grew faster than US domestic manufacturing output.
Imports from those Asian production hubs increased about 10 percent, or roughly 90 billion dollars, while US manufacturing output grew only about 1 percent.³
Canada’s exports to the United States contracted and growth in Mexican exports slowed compared with the previous two years, even as rhetoric around nearshoring intensified.³

Container data points in the same direction.

US maritime container imports in October 2025 were about 2.3 million TEU, down around 7 to 8 percent year over year and only fractionally above 2024 levels on a year to date basis, according to Descartes and other industry trackers.⁴
Imports from China into the US fell double digits year over year, yet Asia as a whole remains dominant in US containerized imports, and North America still imports nearly four containers for every one it exports on transpacific routes.^4,5

In other words, the US is buying slightly less from Asia at the margin and slightly more from closer partners, but the basic picture remains: most manufactured goods still arrive from Asian production networks, not from reshored or nearshored factories.

3. Mexico’s moment is real, but it is not a flood

Where nearshoring stops being hype and becomes visible is Mexico.

Mexico overtook China as the largest source of US goods imports in 2023, as US imports from Mexico rose and imports from China fell sharply.⁶
By 2024, total US goods trade with Mexico reached about 840 billion dollars, with US imports from Mexico up nearly 7 percent year over year and a trade deficit above 170 billion dollars.⁷
BBVA analysis shows that by the end of 2023, the United States absorbed more than 83 percent of Mexico’s non oil exports, and that the shift was reinforced by the post 2018 US China tariff environment and the USMCA framework.⁸
Mexico now accounts for roughly 15 percent of total US trade, ahead of Canada and China, with autos, trucks, parts, computers, wiring harnesses and medical devices among the top growth sectors.⁹

On the investment side, nearshoring momentum is also visible.

UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2025 notes that Latin America’s foreign direct investment rose about 7 percent in 2024, with Brazil and Mexico together capturing more than sixty percent of inflows.¹⁰
Regional and national sources describe Mexico as one of the world’s largest FDI recipients in 2024, with manufacturing accounting for a large share and nearshoring frequently cited as a driver.^10,11,12

For logistics operators, the land border tells the story even more clearly than trade value:

Recent US Department of Transportation data, summarized by Mexico Business News, shows more than 6.3 million loaded truck containers crossing the US–Mexico border in the first eight months of 2025, with Laredo alone handling nearly half of them.⁹
Laredo has effectively become one of North America’s busiest “ports,” surpassing some major seaports in total trade handled.

This is what “real” nearshoring looks like from an operational perspective: more cross border truck flows, heavier reliance on a small number of land crossings, and growing congestion at key bridges and customs gateways.

At the same time, the macro picture is more modest than the headlines suggest. Mexico’s economic growth has been relatively subdued in 2024 and 2025, and manufacturing capacity has not expanded fast enough to absorb all of the demand that might otherwise return from Asia.^11,3 That is why Kearney’s data shows US imports from Asian low cost countries growing faster again, even as Mexico’s role increases.

4. China plus one still often means “China plus Mexico or Vietnam”

Another important nuance for logistics teams: a lot of what is labeled “nearshored” is really “reassembled closer to the customer.” The origin of many components and materials has not moved yet.

Economist Impact’s Trade in Transition 2025 work explicitly warns that headline trade statistics understate how much Chinese content still reaches the US through alternate routes, since Chinese inputs are widely used in global manufacturing, particularly across Southeast Asia.¹
DHL’s 2025 Trade Atlas echoes this, arguing that while the share of direct US imports from China is falling, Chinese content in goods imported from other countries remains high.¹³
Reuters reporting on US Vietnam trade negotiations in 2025 notes that US tariffs now target not only goods made in Vietnam, but also “transshipped” products that contain Chinese components, precisely because many electronics and consumer goods exported from Vietnam to the US still rely on Chinese parts and financing.^14,15,16

Mexico is in a similar position. Mexican assembled autos, appliances and electronics often embed Chinese or Asian parts and machinery even when the final assembly and export happen under USMCA preferences.^8,14

For your planning, that means two things:

Nearshoring can change modes and routes before it changes true origin. You may see ocean flows shift from China–US West Coast to Asia–Mexico and then cross border truck to US destinations, while the bill of materials still depends on Chinese or regional Asian suppliers.
Policy risk moves downstream. When US trade policy starts targeting transshipment and Chinese inputs embedded in “friendly” exports, your risk analysis must extend beyond the last country of export and into component and supplier networks.

5. Where nearshoring is operationally real for LSPs and shippers

From a practical operations perspective, nearshoring is “real” where you can see at least three of the following:

Origin shift for core SKUs. Key products that used to load at Asian ports now regularly move from Mexican plants or distribution centers and show up as cross border truck flows into the US.
Persistent cross border volume growth. Volumes through gateways like Laredo, Otay Mesa, Hidalgo and other land ports show multi quarter increases that are tied to specific customers or sectors, not just one off tariff spikes.⁹
Network redesign from your largest customers. Anchor shippers in autos, electronics, machinery or medical devices have restructured routing guides, changed inventory locations and renegotiated contracts to reflect Mexico or other nearshore sites as primary origin, not backup.
New bottlenecks. Border wait times, customs inspections, empty repositioning and appointment constraints start to become your new day to day constraints, replacing the previous focus on ocean transit, port congestion and long haul inland rail.

This is very different from a single press release about a new plant. Until volumes and SKUs show up in your TMS, WMS and visibility tools, a “nearshoring announcement” is just optionality.

6. Where the hype is strongest

On the hype side, nearshoring is often overstated in at least three ways that matter for logistics planning.

6.1 Counting announcements instead of output

Industrial and political narratives frequently treat investment announcements, groundbreakings and memoranda of understanding as proof of nearshoring success. The data tells a slower story.

UNCTAD shows that global FDI has fallen for two consecutive years, and even though Latin America’s FDI rose in 2024, new project flows are still below levels seen in the previous decade.¹⁰
Kearney’s work highlights a lag between announced manufacturing projects and actual output, with US manufacturing expanding only about 1 percent while imports from low cost Asian regions grew ten times faster.³

For 3PLs and shippers, the critical metric is not “number of nearshoring press releases” but the share of your volume that actually migrates to new origins and modes.

6.2 Treating Mexico as a frictionless substitute for China

Mexico’s strengths are clear: proximity, USMCA, growing manufacturing ecosystems and a strong base in autos, appliances and electronics. Yet the logistics reality is not frictionless.

Border crossings rely on a limited number of bridges and ports of entry, some of which have not added capacity at the same pace as trade volumes. Laredo’s World Trade Bridge still handles an outsized share of cross border trade, and there has been no entirely new cargo bridge in decades.⁹
Congestion, customs procedures, documentation requirements such as Carta Porte and alignment with US and Canadian systems remain daily pain points for carriers and shippers.⁹
Mexico’s own economic growth has been modest, and infrastructure, power, water and workforce constraints limit how quickly capacity can expand in certain states.^11,12

If your internal strategy slide treats “move to Mexico” as a simple swap for “made in China,” your network design is likely understating these constraints.

6.3 Ignoring the continuing role of Asia

Finally, nearshoring talk sometimes jumps straight from “less China” to “solved.” The container and trade data suggest a more complicated mix.

North American supply chains still rely on transpacific lanes where North America imports nearly four containers for every one it exports.⁵
China’s share of US imports has fallen, but imports from other Asian low cost countries, especially for electronics and electrical equipment, have grown, and Asian capacity remains critical for peak seasons and product launches.^3,4,13
Vietnam, India and other South and Southeast Asian exporters continue to increase shipments to the US, even while those same countries import more from China for components and machinery.^14,15,16

Nearshoring is altering the mix, not eliminating the underlying global structure.

7. Practical checks for “real” nearshoring in your network

Given the gap between narrative and data, LSPs and shippers need simple, repeatable checks. A few starting points:

Track by lane and SKU, not by slogan. For each top customer, list the SKUs, HS codes or product families that have actually shifted from Asia to Mexico or other nearshore origins in the last 24 months. Where the answer is “none,” treat nearshoring talk as future optionality, not current reality.
Compare contract value with volume share. If new nearshore contracts represent 10 percent of your revenue but only 2 percent of your handled volume, you are still in the early adopter phase. Plan capacity and risk accordingly.
Watch land border metrics as closely as ocean metrics. Monitor crossing times, rejection rates, inspection patterns and truck appointment availability at Laredo, Otay Mesa, Hidalgo and other key ports. These are emerging as new bottlenecks in the nearshoring era.⁹
Map component exposure where you can. For strategic customers in autos and electronics, validate, at least in broad strokes, how much of the bill of materials still depends on Asian or Chinese inputs. This helps anticipate new tariff or compliance risks.
Use visibility tools to tag flows by “nearshore stage.” In your TMS or visibility platform, consider tagging shipments as “legacy offshore,” “hybrid” (Asia to Mexico to US) or “nearshore integrated” to make planning, reporting and customer conversations concrete.

8. What this means for planning in 2026

For logistics service providers and shippers, the practical takeaway is to treat nearshoring as a serious, but still evolving, shift.

Nearshoring is real where you see sustained growth in cross border flows, deepened customer commitments and repeated, multi quarter changes to origin patterns.
The hype is strongest where analysis stops at investment announcements, ignores land border constraints, or treats Chinese content as solved simply because the last factory is now in a different country.
Risk, capacity and pricing decisions should be anchored in measured changes to lanes and SKUs, not only in macro narratives.

Nearshoring to Mexico is one of the most important logistics stories of this decade. It is also a story that plays out container by container and truck by truck. The teams that win are likely to be the ones who separate marketing storylines from actual flows, and configure their networks accordingly.

Turn nearshoring reality into lane level decisions with TRADLINX

Nearshoring will not be decided in strategy slides. It will be decided in routing guides, contracts and daily shipment choices. To make that practical, you need a clear view of how your own flows are shifting, not just market averages.

Tag and compare nearshore lanes. Use TRADLINX Ocean Visibility to group China, Alt Asia and Mexico origins into lane families, then compare lead times, roll rates and exception patterns side by side.
Track cross border bottlenecks. Monitor delay patterns at key land border gateways and link them to specific customers and SKUs, instead of relying only on volume headlines.
Support contract talks with real shipment history. Bring lane level data into 2026 negotiations so you can show how nearshored flows actually behave compared with legacy Asia routes.

If you would like to see what your own nearshoring story looks like in shipment data, contact our team for a short lane review.

Sources

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