The constitutional reforms promoted by President Claudia Sheinbaum to strengthen the country’s energy and fiscal sovereignty raised alarm bells among American corporations, which accuse Mexico of closing spaces for private investment and applying “aggressive” tax measures.
Mexico City, November 3 (However).- The constitutional reforms promoted by the President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardoto strengthen the stewardship of the State in strategic areas such as electricity and the hydrocarbonsto consolidate public companies, as well as the decree of the former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador that eliminated discretionary tax forgiveness for large business corporations, are now a bone of contention with the big corporate Americans who intend to use them as an argument against our country in the renegotiation of the Trade Agreement with States Joined (EU) y Canada.
At the end of October there were statements from powerful American business organizations that anticipated their objections against the laws that hinder their discretionary operation in our country and would like Mexico to be more flexible regarding their interests in the renegotiation of the trade agreement that will take place in 2026.
During her first year in office, President Sheinbaum Pardo has promoted 53 constitutional reforms, including some to articles 25, 27 and 28, which strengthen the stewardship of the Mexican State in strategic areas and over assets that are the property of the nation and the heritage of all Mexicans. They are also uncomfortable with the reform that fundamentally changed a Judicial Branch now directly elected by the people, replacing an administration of justice that was always at the service of the powerful.
AGGRESSIVE POLITICS?
Accustomed to evading taxes, obtaining forgiveness or exceptional benefit conditions in the fulfillment of their fiscal responsibilities in our country, American businessmen have already begun to pressure their government and that of Mexico, in the preamble to the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The main organization of the private initiative in the United States, the US Chamber of Commerce, complained that the Tax Administration Service (SAT) of our country has increased what it judges are aggressive and opaque practices that violate the North American Trade Agreement (T-MEC), published last Thursday, October 30, 2025, in the newspaper Reforma, from Mexico City.
The capital newspaper reports that in a document presented within the framework of public consultations on the USMCA opened by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the US Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the actions of the SAT violate principles of non-discrimination, predictability and transparency contained in Chapter 14 of the trade agreement signed by Canada, the United States and Mexico.
“The aggressive and inconsistent practices of the Tax Administration Service in tax matters, which include excessive audits, the denial of deductions for payments between companies and retroactive sanctions, have generated uncertainty and increased costs for American companies,” said the Chamber of Commerce of the neighboring country, according to the newspaper Reforma in its publication last Thursday, October 30, 2025.
The US Chamber of Commerce was also dissatisfied with what it called the retroactive interpretation made by the SAT, by denying insurers the possibility of claiming tax credits for the VAT amounts included in the compensation paid to external suppliers and that affects US firms.
GREAT BENEFICIARIES
According to a report from the Ministry of Finance, released this Monday, November 3, 2025 by the newspaper La Jornada, in a note signed by reporter Dora Villanueva, practically four of every 10 pesos that the Mexican treasury claims correspond to tax credits from large taxpayers, companies whose turnover exceeds 1,500 million pesos annually.
The Ministry of Finance specified that of the more than 3 trillion pesos in tax credits registered until September 2025, more than one trillion, 37 percent of the total, correspond to large corporations that operate in the country. Tax credits are the debts that, according to the Tax Administration Service (SAT), taxpayers have.
Practically two out of every three pesos that the SAT claims in its tax credit portfolio are in litigation, because taxpayers filed some means of defense before the Judiciary. In that portfolio there are credits as old as those of Grupo Salinas, insurance companies, and that of the mining company First Majestic Silver, on which the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation ruled last Friday, October 31, 2025, in the sense that it must pay 2,869 million pesos in uncovered taxes. The mining company announced that it promoted arbitration within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
THE DECREE
The displeasure of American transnationals is also related to the decree signed by the then President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on May 20, 2019, with the purpose of eliminating tax privileges, in which he undertakes not to grant condonations, or to exempt, totally or partially, the payment of contributions and their accessories to large taxpayers and tax debtors.
During the press conference, where this information was announced, the then Head of the SAT, Margarita Rios Farjat, reported that, in the last eighteen years, taxes amounting to 400,902 million pesos (current value) were forgiven to 153,530 taxpayers, based on debt forgiveness schemes on contributions, fines and surcharges, different from what is provided for in the Federal Tax Code.
In the period 2007-2018, 54% of the total amount of tax forgiveness from the private sector was concentrated in 108 taxpayers, to whom 213 billion pesos were forgiven (in current value). Ríos-Farjat observed that the growing tendency to use general tax forgiveness every six years, which called into question the principle of fiscal policy of reserving these measures for cases of urgency and need, which also contravened the constitutional principle that we all contribute to the public burden in a proportional and equitable manner.
OTHER PRESSURES
Leaders of the most influential companies in the United States asked on Friday, October 31, 2025, the government of President Donald Trump to renew the Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the United States, but to put pressure on our country so that American companies are protected from what they called the politicization of the Judiciary in Mexico, which puts independent arbitrations at risk in the face of what they called “political whims,” says a note published last Saturday, November 1, 2025 by the newspaper Reforma with the signature of José Días Briseño, your correspondent in Washington.
According to information from Reforma, the directors of the most important US corporations asked to stop what they called discrimination by the Mexican Government in the energy, telecommunications, aviation and parcel services sectors. In energy, for favoring Petróleos Mexicanos and the Federal Electricity Commission; in telecommunications for privileging Telefonos de México, owned by Carlos Slim; in aviation to protect the Mexican Aviation Company and prevent cargo services from being able to be made from the Mexico City International Airport and not from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, as is currently the case.
Information from Reforma’s correspondent in Washington indicates that the leaders of powerful US companies believe that “Mexico’s recent judicial reforms, including efforts to eliminate independent regulators, will negatively affect the investment climate in the country. Under these reforms, Mexico will be the only country in the world where all its judges will be elected by popular vote, raising concerns that disputes between private investors and the Government will be subject to political considerations rather than the rule of law.”
What are the constitutional reforms that most upset the managers of large corporations?
