US pork producers want truck issue resolved

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and state pork producer organisations have urged the Obama Administration to resolve a dispute with Mexico regarding trucks entering the US.

Last March, the Mexican government imposed higher tariffs on an estimated US$2.4 billion of US goods after the US Congress failed to renew a pilot programme that allowed a limited number of Mexican trucking companies to work beyond the 25-mile commercial zone previously created in the US.

In a letter to President Obama, NPPC and 37 state producer associations asked the US government to live up to a provision in the 1994 North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that allows Mexican trucks to haul freight into and out of the US.

Mexican trucks had been operating in the US under the Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Programme, which was started by the US Department of Transportation in September 2007 as a way to implement the NAFTA trucking provision. That provision was supposed to start in December 1995 and take full effect by January 1, 2000.

Congress refused to renew the pilot programme or to implement the NAFTA provision, citing concerns about the safety of Mexican trucks even though the pilot programme held them to the same safety standards as US trucks and were examined and cleared by US inspectors. In February 2001, a NAFTA dispute-settlement panel ruled that excluding Mexican trucks violated US obligations under NAFTA. The ruling gave Mexico the right to retaliate against US products entering Mexico.

"We need to get this trucking issue resolved," said NPPC President Sam Carney, a pork producer from Adair, Iowa, "Mexico is an important market for US pork, which right now isn't on the retaliation list, but it could be. More importantly, this needs to be resolved so our trading partners have assurance that the US will live up to its trade obligations."

In 2009, the US exported more than 503,000 tonnes of pork to Mexico, for a value of US$762 million, making it the No. 2 market for US pork exports.