Mexican president reportedly to urge Obama to allow Mexican trucks inside U.S.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon

The Trucker Staff

4/13/2009

President Barack Obama will be urged by Mexican President Felipe Calderon to let Mexico trucks further into the U.S. when Obama visits Mexico later this week, Bloomberg.com reported today.

In fact, Mexico’s Deputy Transportation Minister Humberto Trevino told Bloomberg that “We don’t simply want to re-establish the pilot project we had, but to have a project with a lot more reach.”

Trevino added that the Mexican government sees an opportunity for its trucks to have open access because the Obama administration shows willingness to work on the situation.

Obama and Calderon are to meet in Mexico City Thursday and Friday.

Beatriz Leycugui, the Mexican undersecretary for foreign commerce, said “We’re looking for a complete opening in freight transportation” adding that “That’s what is in the [NAFTA] treaty.”

CANACAR, a trade association representing individual carriers within the Mexican trucking industry, said last week that the closure of the U.S. market to Mexican carriers as a result of the termination of the Cross Border Demonstration Project is causing billions of dollars in losses to Mexican motor carriers.

The trade group filed a Notice of Arbitration document week before last and it was released last week by the State Department.

The 18-month-long Cross Border Demonstration Project ended last month when Obama signed the omnibus spending bill that included language terminating the pilot project.

Mexico subsequently put tariffs on some 90 exports with an estimated cost to the U.S. of $2.4 billion.

Trevino told Bloomberg that the Mexican government was encouraged by a letter written last week by 140 business, food and agricultural organizations urging Obama to resolve the tariff issue.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, mandated by Obama to come up with a new program, has been working to develop a set of principles for a new cross-border program that Obama can present to Calderon.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who along with Sen. Byron Dorgan, D.-N.D., had led several efforts to end the cross-border program for the past two years, has said the tariffs are illegal “and should be treated as nothing more than political gamesmanship.”

DeFazio wrote in a letter to Obama that “Even if there was a legal basis for the tariffs, the $2.4 billion price tag is a disproportionate response, and the 90 U.S. products targeted for tariffs were illegally selected.”

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it had “no comment at this time.“

Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at editor@thetrucker.com.