Estimated Impacts of a Potential U.S.-Mexico Preferential Trading Agreement for the Agricultural Sector

We develop a three region - U.S., Mexico, and Rest-of-World - simulation model to analyze the effects on the agricultural sector of a potential preferential trading arrangement (PTA) between Mexico and the United States. The simulation exercises indicate that two-way agricultural trade increases and welfare improves in the United States and Mexico from a bilateral preferential agreement on agricultural products. Our results show that when border protection is eliminated by the United States and Mexico, bilateral agricultural trade expands by over 15 percent. Relative to the size of the two agricultural sectors, however, the overall impact is very small for the U.S. agricultural sector but there is a more significant adjustment for Mexican agriculture.