On July 1, 2020, the USMCA entered into force, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that had governed U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade since January 1, 1994.

The replacement was substantively negotiated, modifying NAFTA's framework on labor, automotive content, digital trade, and dispute settlement. The strategic significance of the USMCA's entry into force, arriving four months after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global supply chains, was operationally larger than the legal-text modifications would suggest: USMCA provided the durable trade-policy foundation for what subsequently became the most substantial restructuring of North American supply chains since NAFTA's original signing. Across 2020-2024, Mexican manufacturing FDI from U.

S. firms accelerated; Mexican exports to the United States grew substantially (with Mexico displacing China as the largest source of U.S.

goods imports in 2023 per U.S. Census Bureau data); industrial real estate in Mexican border states reached unprecedented utilization rates; and the broader pattern often described as 'nearshoring' became a measurable structural shift rather than a forecast.