Argentina’s trade surplus swelled to nearly US$14 billion in the first half of 2026, the largest on record for a January–June period and a fivefold increase on the same months last year. The result, reported by the national statistics institute, was propelled by a 24.4 percent year-on-year jump in exports to US$49.5 billion, while imports contracted 3.9 percent. The energy balance alone improved by US$2.2 billion, as crude oil shipments from the Vaca Muerta shale formation and rising gas output turned a historical drain on dollars into a net contributor. Buenos Aires province, anchored by agro-industry and petrochemicals, remained the country’s top exporting region, though Neuquén’s energy-driven growth lifted it to fourth place nationally.

Viewed from Taipei, the export picture is even more dramatic. June export orders surged 59.4 percent year-on-year to a record US$95.3 billion, the seventeenth consecutive month of expansion, driven overwhelmingly by demand for artificial-intelligence hardware. Orders for electronic products rose 79.9 percent and information and communications technology goods jumped 81.9 percent, with the United States alone placing US$38.7 billion in orders. Mexico is a direct beneficiary of the same AI investment cycle: its exports of advanced computing equipment to the US tripled in the first four months of the year to over US$50 billion, displacing automobiles as the top export category. Much of the assembly takes place in Jalisco state, where firms such as Foxconn and Flextronics are expanding capacity to meet orders for server racks and processing units.

In South America, the entry into provisional force of the EU–Mercosur trade agreement on 1 May is already leaving a mark. Brazilian exports to the European Union rose by US$2 billion in May and June alone, a 26 percent increase on the same period in 2025, according to the Brazilian trade promotion agency Apex. Two-thirds of the first-half gain in EU-bound sales was concentrated in those two months. Analysts in São Paulo note that the southern states of Santa Catarina, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul are best placed to convert tariff reductions into new export opportunities, though definitive implementation still requires approval from the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament.

These concurrent booms are unfolding against a backdrop of trade-policy friction. The Trump administration’s demand to renegotiate the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement has opened a review round in Mexico City even as Mexican high-tech exports deepen US supply-chain dependence. In Argentina, the government has dismantled export restrictions and is relying on a stable exchange rate to sustain the export momentum, though analysts in Buenos Aires caution that structural tax and logistics reforms remain pending. The next factual milestones to watch are the outcome of the T-MEC review talks and the European Parliament’s vote on the EU–Mercosur deal, both of which will determine whether these trade gains prove durable or vulnerable to political recalibration.