With a global trade war in the offing, manufacturing options closer to home are looking more compelling to U.S. companies. Luis Miranda, founder and managing director of Guadalajara-based tenant representation firm Discovery CRE, cites numerous factors in favor of nearshoring operations to Mexico. Not least of these is the fact that the proximity between the U.S. and Mexico offers logistical advantages.
Compared to China, which Mexico surpassed two years ago as the United States’ leading trading partner, transportation from Mexico simply requires less time. “If you see the distance from port to port between China and the U.S., it’s at least three to four weeks,” Miranda told Connect CRE. “Depending on where you are in Mexico, it could be on the same day or in two or three days.”
There are also more options when it comes to shipping methods. ‘What we are sending from here to the United States is by plane, by train, by truck or by ship because we can use the four modes of transportation,” said Miranda. “With China, you can only use the ship or the airplane in cargo.”
Mexican labor is also lower cost compared to China and highly qualified, he said. And there’s another, overarching reason to stay in one region. “The world is changing a lot,” Miranda said. Whether it’s geopolitical tensions or turbulent weather, the potential for disruption to the supply chain is greater when bringing in goods from another part of the world.
Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic caused such a disruption in global shipping, leading to empty shelves and showrooms in a country where consumers are accustomed to having products available when they want to buy. “Corporate America said, ‘we don’t want to suffer this again. We want to make a stronger supply chain,’” said Miranda. “And that can only be done regionally. So that’s why it’s very important, the region as a whole, because we complement each other.”
One of the key drivers behind the Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. That isn’t likely to happen in the timeframe envisioned by the administration, though. “It will take a lot of time and a lot of money,” Miranda said, adding that a labor shortage in the U.S. is another factor.
For example, he said, Discovery CRE has a client based in Ann Arbor, MI, with 14 plants in the U.S. and three in Mexico. The manufacturer has told Miranda that even if he wanted to move operations of the three Mexican facilities stateside, there wouldn’t be enough workers available to operate all three.
Closing a manpower gap isn’t the only advantage that Mexico offers to U.S. manufacturers. There’s also the expertise in high-tech manufacturing available in centers such as Guadalajara, coupled with the relatively quick cross-border turnaround on the assemblies that comprise such products. “I know about products that cross the border from the U.S. to Mexico at least 13 to 14 times” at different stages of the manufacturing process, said Miranda. “If you try that with Asia, you will not really be able to do it because just imagine how much time that would take.”
Beyond Mexico’s geographic convenience, a crucial element of the country’s value to U.S. companies is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). In effect since 2020, it allows certain products to enter the U.S. duty-free, meaning they do not incur tariffs if they meet specific compliance requirements.
Among those requirements is compliance with rules of origin, mandating that a significant portion of the product’s materials and labor come from the U.S., Canada or Mexico. Similarly, the USMCA stipulates that a certain percentage of a product’s value must be derived from North American sources. This requirement not only promotes local manufacturing but also helps companies avoid tariffs.
When the U.S. imposed a temporary 25% tariff on imports from Canada or Mexico earlier in 2025, goods that comply with USMCA rules were exempt. This provides a significant financial incentive for companies to ensure their products meet the agreement’s standards.
Discovery CRE seeks to provide U.S. clients with solutions tailored to their requirements. The process begins with location strategy: zeroing in on which region and city would best suit the client based on their requirements and the specialized expertise available in that city.
The company calls upon its knowledge of Mexico’s prime industrial corridors, including Guadalajara/Jalisco, Monterrey/Nuevo León, El Bajío and the Mexico City metro area, as well as the emerging commercial opportunities in Tijuana/Baja California, which borders on Southern California. Each of these corridors offers its own advantages.
“There’s a saying that where manufacturers go, suppliers go,” Miranda said. “Here in Mexico, there are many places where you can do metal stamping or you can process food or you have expertise of labor that is different from region to region.”
Other factors that go into devising the location strategy include infrastructure requirements and transportation requirements. “Once we see the location strategy and we justify it, then we go from the general to the particular,” said Miranda.
In analyzing a client’s site selection needs, Discovery CRE considers operational requirements, labor analytics and supply chain integration, among other factors. It examines specific properties from multiple perspectives, ranging from infrastructure capacity to expansion potential.
Having consulted on location strategy and then site selection, the Discovery CRE team then asks for the tenant-rep assignment. Generally, the answer is yes, unless the client has already has a contract with one of the major U.S.- or Canada-based services firms. “But the truth is, many times they don’t have a commitment, and they have known us since the beginning; then they hire us as tenant reps,” Miranda said. “And that’s where we want to be.”
#Discovery #CRE #Nearshoring #Guidance