Thread: Mexican Trucks Stay Home After 17-Year Push to Open U.S. Bor

November 08, 2011 5:00 AMtext size: TT

Mexican Trucks Stay Home After 17-Year Push to Open U.S. Border

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- It took 17 years and $2.4 billion in trade tariffs to get the U.S. Transportation Department to let a Mexican long-haul truck cross the border last month. It's unlikely that many more will line up, the head of Mexico's biggest trucking organization said.

The governments of Mexico and the U.S. say the 18-month pilot program resolves the issue of how to implement the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement while keeping unsafe and polluting trucks off the road. Yet enough business barriers remain that trucking companies will probably stick to the solutions they've developed in the interim, executives in both countries say.

Most Mexican trucking companies won't make long-term investments in technology to meet tougher U.S. pollution controls because they're not sure their licenses to enter the U.S. will last longer than the program, said Jose Refugio Munoz, chief executive officer of trucking group Camara Nacional del Autotransporte de Carga, or Canacar. A similar pilot project ran from 2007 to 2009 before it was canceled.

“We've had it up to here with experiments,â€