Even as the U.S. government predicts it will be ready to allow Mexican trucks access by the end of the summer, Mexico appears to be balking at allowing reciprocal access.

Copley News Service reports that Mexico’s transportation agency isn’t accepting applications from U.S. truckers, and that the Mexican trucking association CANACAR has persuaded President Vicente Fox to consider a permanent ban on U.S. trucks.
Fox has criticized the rules the U.S. set up for Mexican trucks to operate on this side of the border, calling them “isolationist and discriminatory.”
Meanwhile, on the U.S. side of the border, the plans are still controversial. The California Trucking Assn., once in favor of the NAFTA provision, has now teamed up with environmentalists and labor unions seeking a court injunction to stop the trucks from entering.
The news service also reported last week that dozens of aging short-haul Mexican trucks have traveled illegally beyond the 20-mile commercial border zone to which they are legally limited.
In a recent DOT inspector general’s report, at least 52 Mexican motor carriers operated improperly in 20 states beyond the four border states in 1999. Part of the problem is that only California and Arizona allow officers to take enforcement action against trucks operating without the proper authority.
Meanwhile, the Mexican government has unveiled a program that might help address some U.S. concerns about Mexican trucks – the aging truck fleet south of the border, considered by many to be unsafe and polluting.
Government development bank National Financiers has teamed up with heavy truck makers to launch a $73.8 million program to lend small Mexican trucking companies up to 80 percent of the cost of a new truck.
Mexican trucks average 16 years old, compared to five years for U.S. trucks. Mexican transport groups have been advocating the modernization of the country’s trucking fleet for some time, especially in light of NAFTA.