Mexico’s Energy Policy, USMCA Renegotiation Barrier

Washington has formally documented US$2.5 billion in overdue PEMEX payments to US  suppliers and raised structural objections to Mexico's 2024 constitutional reform and 2025 energy laws, setting the stage for energy policy to be one of the most contested chapters in the July review.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) places Mexico's energy sector framework in the crosshairs of the bilateral trade relationship, identifying in its 2026 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers a pattern of market restrictions that it says disadvantage US companies operating in Mexico's oil, gas, and electricity sectors. The report, submitted to President Donald Trump and Congress on April 1, 2026, arrives just weeks after Mexico and the United States launched the first bilateral round of USMCA review talks in Washington and has added considerable weight to the energy chapter of a negotiation whose July 1 deadline the USTR itself has acknowledged may not be met.

PEMEX Liabilities

An immediate concern raised by the report is the outstanding debt owed by PEMEX to US companies that supplied oil and gas services over the past two years. According to the USTR, over the last two years US companies supplying Mexico's oil and gas sector have reported what the report describes as "an unprecedented challenge" in receiving payment from PEMEX. As of Dec. 31, 2025, while some US companies have received full or partial payments, others continue to report overdue amounts exceeding US$2.5 billion.

The NOC entered 2026 carrying approximately US$84.5 billion in total debt, the lowest in eleven years, thanks to high government transfers and debt swaps, yet its cash generation and procurement payment cycles have remained strained by declining production, the costs of the Dos Bocas refinery buildout, and constrained capital expenditure.

The Constitutional and Legislative Framework Under Scrutiny

Beyond the payment issue, the USTR's criticism extends to the structural architecture of Mexico's energy policy, a series of reforms that Washington characterizes as systematically limiting private sector, including US participation in the Mexican market.

The USTR report states that since 2018, Mexico has undertaken numerous measures culminating in the October 2024 ratification of a constitutional amendment that reclassified CFE and PEMEX as "public enterprises" rather than "productive enterprises" in order to limit private sector participation in the energy market. That reclassification is not merely semantic, it removed the competitive governance constraints that had applied to the state-owned entities under the 2013 energy reform, enabling preferential treatment in dispatch, procurement, and permitting that the USTR now explicitly flags as barriers to American commerce.

The March 2025 energy reform package implementing that constitutional amendment drew specific scrutiny, with the USTR noting that the laws establish as a core principle a guarantee of CFE's prevalence, require CFE ownership of at least 54% of any mixed-investment electricity generation project, and set out a preference for CFE over private entities in electricity generation and marketing.

The USTR also raised concerns about draft regulations previewed in December 2025 that would have placed restrictions on the ability of independent power producers to sell their output and granted CFE the option to acquire their assets at no cost.

Permits, Delays, and Fuel Market Restrictions

The USTR's concerns extend beyond ownership structure to daily operational barriers. The report asserts that private companies operating in Mexico "are often unable to participate effectively, if at all, in Mexico's energy sector due to frequent delays, unexplained or unjustified rejections, and inaction regarding applications for new permits or permit modifications." It also notes that regulatory changes impose new restrictions on fuel permits, reduce the term for new import permits from 20 years to five years, and reduce the term for commercialization permits from 30 years to two years, changes that do not apply to PEMEX.

The asymmetric treatment embedded in Mexico's regulatory framework, shorter permit terms and more restrictive conditions for private operators while PEMEX retains its legacy operating rights, is precisely the kind of national treatment violation that the USMCA's energy chapter was designed to prevent.

USMCA Implications and the Road to July 1

In July 2022, the United States had already formally requested consultations with Mexico under USMCA's dispute settlement mechanisms, alleging that Mexico's energy reforms discriminated in favor of PEMEX and CFE and disadvantaged US firms in renewables, electricity, natural gas, and retail fuels. That case has simmered without resolution. The 2026 NTE report now reframes those concerns as live trade barriers rather than pending disputes, elevating them to the highest-profile annual accounting of US trade grievances.

The energy chapter places Mexico in a structurally difficult position. The Sheinbaum administration has framed CFE prevalence and PEMEX primacy as matters of energy sovereignty and constitutional mandate, arguments that are politically durable domestically but technically in tension with the non-discrimination and market access commitments embedded in USMCA. Analysts have noted that any substantive changes to the energy articles would likely require legislative action in Mexico, since those commitments are now grounded in constitutional text.

Formal bilateral talks continue. Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard has expressed confidence in a favorable outcome, and Mexico has moved to address a significant portion of the 54 specific trade barriers identified by the USTR through earlier rounds of engagement. How the energy and PEMEX receivables chapters are resolved, or deferred, will substantially determine both the pace of the USMCA review process and the credibility of any agreement that emerges from it.