The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) opened the public consultation on October 5 ahead of the 2027 annual review of the T-MEC, with comments open until January 12, 2027 and a public hearing still without a date, according to the notice published in the Federal Register.
The process was triggered because at the joint review of July 1, 2026 the United States did not agree to extend the treaty for another 16 years, which opened the door to annual reviews until the three parties confirm the extension or the agreement expires in 2036, according to Excélsior. For Mexico the calendar carries weight because the review now underway remains open: La Jornada reported that the fourth bilateral round, scheduled for September, was pushed to this month, and that Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard proposed moving forward on reducing tariffs on steel, aluminum and the automotive industry. The two processes, the 2026 one and the 2027 one, overlapped in the same year.
The notice establishes two dockets, USTR-2026-0595 for comments and USTR-2026-0596 for requests to appear, and five topics: operation and implementation of the treaty, compliance with the agreement, recommendations for concrete actions for the joint review, investment climate, and economic security strategies in the face of other countries' market practices. Each speaker will have five minutes, and replies are accepted seven days after the hearing closes. The difference from the September 2025 notice lies in the omissions: that text expressly asked for comments on the North American Competitiveness Committee, created under Article 26.1 to drive trilateral cooperation on workforce development; the 2026 document does not mention it, as documented in Enrique Quintana's column in El Financiero.
The next fixed point is January 12, 2027, when the comment period closes; the USTR will publish the date and venue of the hearing on its portal, and the dockets are publicly accessible. The 2027 agenda takes shape in the questionnaire published on October 5, in the topics it includes and in those left out of the text.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.