Mexico has either just overtaken China as leading exporter to U.S. — or it’s had title all year

Bloomberg is running a story saying Mexico has just eclipsed China as the largest exporter to the U.S. The rival news service is using a complicated formula, using the 12-month rolling average of the share of U.S. imports.

But really, America’s southern neighbor has held the title for all of 2023. Here at MarketWatch, we like simpler calculations. Drawing on a quarterly series measuring trade on a balance of payments basis, Mexico took the lead in the third quarter of 2022.

The…