WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is privately weighing pulling the United States out of USMCA, the trade agreement that binds the U.S., Mexico and Canada, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. The possibility of a U.S. withdrawal is jolting North American trade politics as the pact heads toward its first major review, Feb. 11, 2026.
The report adds fresh volatility to negotiations already expected to be contentious, because the USMCA’s “sunset” and review provisions give each country leverage — and a hard deadline. In a short follow-up, Reuters reported it could not independently verify Bloomberg’s account, but noted the timing: the three governments are preparing for pivotal talks that will shape whether USMCA is extended, rewritten or allowed to drift toward expiration.
USMCA pressure campaign: tough talk meets a real deadline
Trump has repeatedly argued the United States should be able to extract better terms from its neighbors, and the review window gives him a public forum to press those demands. During a Jan. 13 appearance in Michigan, he dismissed the deal in stark terms, according to Reuters: “There’s no real advantage to it, it’s irrelevant,” Trump said.
USMCA has been marketed for years as the backbone of North American supply chains, especially in autos, agriculture and advanced manufacturing. The threat that the U.S. could walk away — even if used as bargaining leverage — raises immediate questions for companies that have built compliance systems, sourcing strategies and investment plans around USMCA rules.
What an exit from USMCA could mean for trade and tariffs
For businesses, the near-term worry is not only the legal act of withdrawing, but the uncertainty it creates before any replacement framework is clear. Manufacturers often plan production and sourcing years out; a credible risk that USMCA could be scrapped can freeze expansion decisions, reorder supplier contracts and pressure exporters to hedge against abrupt tariff changes.
The auto industry, in particular, has pushed the administration to keep USMCA intact. Reuters reported that major automakers — including Tesla, Toyota and Ford — urged the White House in November to extend USMCA, arguing it is crucial to U.S. auto production. The American Automotive Policy Council, which represents the Detroit Three, said the agreement helps companies compete globally through regional integration and produces significant efficiency gains, Reuters reported.
In practical terms, the biggest disruption would likely hit cross-border trade that currently relies on USMCA preferences and on shared North American production. Even if governments later negotiate a new deal, the gap between withdrawal threats and a finalized replacement could be enough to rattle inventories, pricing and investment — particularly for exporters in Mexico and Canada that depend on predictable access to the U.S. market.
How the USMCA review works and what comes next
The USMCA’s scheduled joint review is not just another diplomatic check-in; it is written into the agreement’s “review and term extension” structure. According to a Congressional Research Service explainer on USMCA’s joint review process, the three countries are set to begin the first joint review on the sixth anniversary of the pact’s entry into force, July 1, 2026. If all three agree to extend it, USMCA is automatically extended for another 16 years.
The CRS report also notes that the joint review process is separate from the withdrawal provisions: any party can withdraw with six months’ written notice. That distinction matters, because a White House strategy could combine formal review demands with the implicit or explicit threat of withdrawal to pressure concessions.
Canada and Mexico are already moving through domestic steps to prepare. Mexico, for example, opened a public consultation process to gather input ahead of the USMCA review, Reuters reported. Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the evaluation was being carried out in coordination with U.S. and Canadian counterparts, as each government builds its negotiating agenda for the USMCA talks.
What to watch next is whether the administration signals a formal negotiating posture — and whether it begins setting conditions for extension, revision or replacement. Businesses, lawmakers and foreign capitals will also watch for any concrete procedural moves that would turn a private “trial balloon” into an official step toward leaving USMCA.
Looking back: a familiar playbook from NAFTA to USMCA
Trump’s reported private deliberations over USMCA echo a pattern from his first months in office, when he repeatedly flirted with exiting NAFTA to gain leverage. The Washington Post described how Trump was “all set to terminate” NAFTA before pulling back after internal debate and pushback from Mexico and Canada, in a 2017 account of the near-withdrawal episode.
Later that year, Trump amplified the threat publicly. The Guardian reported in August 2017 that he tweeted Canada and Mexico were being “very difficult” and suggested he “may have to terminate” NAFTA, in coverage of his Camp David remarks and tweets.
That brinkmanship ultimately fed into the creation of USMCA itself. Leaders of the three countries signed the revamped agreement at the 2018 G20 summit, Axios reported, in a recap of the USMCA signing. Today, the same threat-and-leverage style appears to be colliding with the USMCA clock — and with an economy that has grown more dependent on tightly integrated North American production than it was a decade ago.
For now, the Bloomberg report leaves open whether Trump is seriously preparing to leave USMCA or using uncertainty as leverage ahead of the review. Either way, the message to Canada, Mexico and corporate America is the same: the USMCA review is not a formality, and the risk of a rupture is no longer theoretical.
