Mexico raises tariffs on imports from Asia. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. Good morning. Mexico's Parliament has voted in favor of the bill that imposes tariffs of between 5 and 50% on more than 1,400 products from Asian nations, including China, that don't have a trade deal with Mexico.

The new levies will take effect starting next year. The BBC's and Nick Marsh has the details.

Nick, hi. Hi, William. So, Nick, how far reaching are these tariffs?

Well, it's quite significant. Mexico has effectively decided to impose import taxes on hundreds of goods from any

Asian country it doesn't have a free trade agreement with. So that includes South Korea,

Thailand, India, but by far the biggest and the most important is the one you mentioned, China.

So starting in January, steel, aluminium, textiles, car parts, you name it,

they'll be taxed between 5 and 50%, depending on the item. And when it comes to China, we're talking

about $130 billion worth of goods every year. So it is a very significant chunk of what comes

into Mexico now subject to import taxes.

Has Mexico's government explained what's behind the introduction of the tariffs?

If you ask Claudia Scheimbaum, Mexico's president, it is to protect Mexican jobs, Mexican

manufacturers, in the face of a deluge of cheap Chinese goods that they're not able to compete

with. It's the reason that anyone really puts tariffs in. If you ask China, it's because she is

under enormous pressure from Donald Trump to do it. So for two reasons. Firstly, because her country,

Mexico itself is bearing the brunt of US tariffs and she's desperate to get them removed. So by tariffing

Chinese goods, she's showing Donald Trump. They're on the same page, and she can go into any

talks, showing that the US is the preferred trading partner of Mexico, essentially, not any Asian

country. Secondly, there is a feeling in the US, which has been growing, that Mexico has become a bit

of a backdoor for Chinese goods to get into America and therefore avoid Trump's tariff.

So if you're at a Chinese car parts factory and you send your goods to Mexico tariff free, then you can sell them onto the US.

Now, the White House has clamped down on that to a certain extent, but there's been this

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