Even as the Obama administration looks for ways to reinstate cross-border trucking, thousands of Mexican trucking companies are suing the United States for reneging on the North American Free Trade Agreement.


According to Reuters, about 4,500 trucking companies represented by Canacar, the Mexican trucking association, are suing the U.S. for $6 billion over this country's refusal to allow Mexican trucks to haul across the border as stipulated by NAFTA.

Mexico put $2.4 billion in punitive tariffs on U.S. exports in March after Congress voted to kill a 2007 cross-border pilot program.

Last month, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the White House is vetting a plan he hopes take to Congress for clearance in June. His aim is to address the concerns about safety that Congress cited when it cut off funding for the Bush administration's limited cross-border program.

Under NAFTA, 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 the legislative and legal tactics of U.S. labor, owner-operator and citizen advocacy groups who fear loss of U.S. jobs to Mexican drivers and argue that Mexican trucks will not be safe.