Mexican Truckers Demand $6B from U.S.

Mexican truckers, frustrated with the pace of efforts to reestablish a cross-border trucking program in Washington, are seeking $6 billion in damages from the United States.

Mexico’s national trucking association, Canacar, demanded arbitration under the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. State Department in April and said the $6 billion covers damages from business lost over 15 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement promised Mexican truckers access to U.S. highways.

Since March, the Obama administration and Mexico have been working on a new cross-border trucking program that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expects to submit to Congress this month.

“Although the United States agreed in NAFTA to phase out its moratorium against Mexican carriers, the United States has acted entirely to the contrary, singling out Mexican carriers as the sole group in the World that is prohibited from obtaining authorization to provide trucking services in the United States,” Canacar said in its arbitration notice, filed with the state department April 2.

Mexico earlier this year imposed $2.4 billion in tariffs on U.S. imports in retaliation for the elimination of a pilot cross-border trucking program that for two years had allowed a limited number of Mexican carriers to haul goods into the United States beyond the border commercial zone and haul goods back to Mexico.