For Immediate Release: April 14, 2010

Washington DC – In a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and U.S. Trade Ambassador Ronald Kirk, Congressman Hunter and 78 other Members of Congress requested that the U.S. take action to renegotiate the U.S.-Mexico cross-border trucking program created under NAFTA.  The letter follows an announcement that the U.S. and Mexico have established a working group to discuss the cross-border trucking issue.

“Reinstating the cross-border trucking program would directly undermine our nation’s border security, endanger public safety, and disadvantage American trucking companies,” said Congressman Hunter.  “The provision of NAFTA that created this program should be renegotiated to eliminate any requirement that opens the U.S.-Mexico border to dangerous trucking activity and, in turn, remove retaliatory tariffs imposed on American products.”    

In 2009, Mexico imposed tariffs on 89 U.S. products in direct response to a decision to terminate the cross-border program for Mexican truckers.

A copy of the letter is available here.