The United States and Mexico have opened three bilateral rounds ahead of the 2026 USMCA review.

Three bilateral rounds before the 1 July review.

The USTR has announced a series of bilateral rounds between the United States and Mexico linked to the first joint review of the USMCA . The first round is scheduled for 28 and 29 May 2026 in Mexico City; the US delegation is to be led by Deputy United States Trade Representative Jeff Goettman . The published agenda covers economic security and rules of origin for key industrial goods .

The second round is scheduled for 16 and 17 June 2026 in Washington, D.C., with discussions announced on agriculture and competitive conditions . The third round is scheduled in Mexico City during the week of 20 July 2026 . Specialised sources place the USMCA review on 1 July 2026, with Politico referring to the formal start of the first phase and Logistics Management to a joint review deadline .

For an operator, the usable information remains limited to the timetable, the venues, the bilateral format and the themes published by the USTR . The file should retain the USTR announcement as the reference document for those elements . FederalRegister.gov states that legal research must be checked against an official edition of the Federal Register .

Rules of origin, economic security and agriculture.

The USTR announcement sets out three bilateral rounds between the United States and Mexico linked to the first joint review of the USMCA . The first round concerns economic security and rules of origin for key industrial goods . The second round includes agriculture and fair competitive conditions . The documentary limit is immediate: the announcement provides no precise HS or TARIC code for those industrial goods .

The link to US implementing rules is made through families of texts, not through any tariff line cited in the USTR announcement . One Federal Register page concerns USMCA implementing regulations relating to textile and apparel goods, automotive goods and other USMCA provisions . Another page concerns implementing regulations relating to marking rules, tariff-rate quotas and other USMCA provisions . FederalRegister.gov states that its XML version is not an official legal edition and that legal research must be checked against an official edition . The operator's file should therefore retain the USTR announcement, the applicable Federal Register document, the official PDF where available and the origin data used in the flow-control system .

USMCA origin and tariff exposure of Mexican flows.

The specialised source distinguishes, for Mexican flows to the United States, between imports that qualify under USMCA rules of origin and those that do not fall within that scope . The former are described as exempt and able to enter the United States duty-free, while imports not covered by the USMCA are presented as subject to a 25% duty . This makes origin qualification the first control point in the operator's file for Mexican goods declared on entry into the US system .

The same source cites four other rates to isolate in the control process: 25% on steel, 10% on aluminium, 25% on automobiles and automotive parts that do not meet USMCA content or labour thresholds, and 20% on certain non-originating goods linked to fentanyl . Those figures are not sufficient to qualify a flow. They should remain verification points for the compliance manager, because the specialised item does not reproduce the official tariff texts, and the FederalRegister.gov pages available in the file state that their XML versions do not replace the official edition or the official PDF on govinfo.gov .

Data to retain for an operator's file.

The available USTR text sets out three sequences - Mexico City on 28-29 May, Washington on 16-17 June, then Mexico City during the week of 20 July - and cites economic security, rules of origin for key industrial goods, agriculture and fair competitive conditions . Within that published scope, it reproduces neither a negotiating mandate nor a draft amendment to the agreement . The evidential limit lies in that publication.

These rounds are announced as bilateral between the United States and Mexico, while the USTR describes the USMCA as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement . The file should therefore not treat those meetings as an agreed trilateral amendment involving Canada.

FederalRegister.gov states that its online documents are "XML renditions of published Federal Register documents" and that the site "does not replace the official print version or the official electronic version on GPO's govinfo.gov" . The same notice states that results must be checked against an official edition .

The USTR announcement does not describe the origin evidence to be produced for a control; it mentions only negotiations on rules of origin for key industrial goods . The operator's file should therefore isolate the data specific to the flow: origin qualification, nomenclature, material nomenclatures, supplier statements, invoices, evidence of processing and references to the applicable USMCA rules . Each document should retain its source, date, product scope and limit, so that the compliance manager can distinguish verified data from a negotiating assumption.