The private organization representing the majority of Mexico’s carriers has asked the government to suspend a pilot cross-border program with the United States because it says Mexican truckers are at a competitive disadvantage with their U.S. counterparts, the Associated Press reported Thursday, Sept. 13.
Tirso Martinez, president of Canacar, said the one-year pilot program, which went into effect Sept. 6, is destined to fail because Mexico’s Transportation Department has failed to resolve traffic bottlenecks for Mexican trucks trying to cross the U.S. border, and does not have the personnel to enforce a provision prohibiting U.S. truckers from carrying domestic Mexican cargo, according to the AP.
Although Mexican cargo haulers have invested U.S. $2.2 billion in their industry and created 54,000 new jobs in the past year, “the Mexican government has not negotiated the conditions that will permit freight haulers to compete on equal terms with its counterparts in the United States,” Martinez told the news agency. “Therefore, we demand that the Transportation Department suspend the launch of this pilot program … because it is not prepared to carry it out.”
Martinez told the AP that Canacar was requesting a meeting with President Felipe Calder
