Cross-border trucking will be one of the things on the agenda today as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Mexico's foreign minister in Mexico today.


Bloomberg quotes an unidentified State Department officials as saying Clinton and Patricia Espinoza will hold talks on U.S. plans to finally allow Mexican truckers to deliver goods produced in Mexico to their destinations in the U.S.

Earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled a "concept document" outlining a three-pronged program to fulfill NAFTA obligations with respect to Mexican trucks. It includes preliminary vetting of Mexican applicants, monitoring of operations and communications to the public and Congress. It is similar in many respects to the pilot program DOT was conducting up until March of 2009.

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the crossing was supposed to have been opened to border-state traffic in 1995 and to long-distance traffic in 2000. The opening was stalled until 2007 in part by difficult negotiations with Mexico but mainly by U.S. labor unions and owner-operator and citizen advocacy groups that oppose free trade, fear the loss of U.S. jobs and argue that Mexican trucks will not be safe.

In 2007 the Bush administration began a demonstration program under which a limited number of U.S. and Mexican carriers could conduct business across the border, but the program was killed by Congress in 2009. Mexico responded with retaliatory tariffs.

The meetings will also cover climate change, trade, immigration, drug and human trafficking, drug violence, and broader Latin American issues, Bloomberg reported. Mexico is the U.S.'s third largest trade partner, after Canada and China.