Members of the Mexican trucking association, Canacar, are threatening a blockade of the U.S.-Mexico border
if Mexican trucks are not given immediate further access to the United States. They are also demanding the Mexican government ban all registered U.S. vehicles from entering the country.
According to published reports, the move is in response to the United States’ failure to lift a ban on Mexican trucks from hauling freight north of the narrow commercial trading zone within the U.S., as called for in the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA was supposed to have allowed Mexican trucks full access to the rest of North America in January 2000, but the Clinton administration, under pressure from organized labor, refused to open the border, citing safety concerns.
The Journal of Commerce reports that Canacar, which has previously stuck to the position that the borders were to remain closed to cross-border truck traffic, is now saying it wants immediate access to U.S. markets.
They, along with United States officials, are waiting on the Mexican government to respond to a plan outlined at a meeting late last month that calls for opening the border to truck traffic this January. Canacar official say such a timetable would be "too late."