Mexican long-haul trucks are crossing the border again, now that a trading feud between the U.S. and Mexico has been settled.
Well, actually, it’s just one truck—Mexican carriers are in no rush to join the newest cross-border trucking pilot program, according to a Nov. 8 Bloomberg Businessweek article.
Numerous barriers—political and nonpolitical—and a bad taste left behind from a failed 2007-2009 NAFTA pilot program are keeping Mexican trucks at home, according to Jose Refugio Munoz, CEO of the Mexican trucking trade association Canacar.
“We’ve had it up to here with experiments,” Munoz told Bloomberg Businessweek. “It’s very uncertain, and that’s why there are very few companies interested in participating.”
Only one truck, owned by Nuevo Laredo-based Transportes Olympic, has been approved by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to operate in the U.S. The Transportes Olympic Freightliner delivered a steel drilling structure to Garland, Texas in October. It was the first to enter the interior of the U.S. since 2009, when Congress—citing safety concerns about Mexican trucks—cut funding to a cross-border pilot program. Upset that the U.S. was not doing its part to implement NAFTA’s free-trade provisions, Mexico responded with retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of U.S. exports.
Thanks to the new pilot program, scheduled to last 18 months, Mexico has agreed to phase out the tariffs.
But only one company other than Transportes Olympic—Tijuana-based Grupo Behr de Baja California SA de CV—has bothered to sign up for the program, according to the FMCSA.
Industry experts said different work rules, cost structures, language and fuel and equipment issues are some of the barriers keeping Mexican carriers from moving the pilot program into high gear. Current work-arounds, such as subcontracting with carriers for Mexico routes and using U.S. drivers in the U.S., re still a better solution than the framework established by the new pilot program, said Jim Filter, general manager for Schneider National de Mexico.
The pilot program “doesn’t make transportation more efficient or cost effective between the U.S. and Mexico,” Filter said. “That has to be the driving force.”
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