Fleet Owner Magazine
July 2011
Mexican trucks: Consider the positives
Jul 12, 2011 12:27 PM, By David Cullen, executive editor
Mexican trucking
credit: Felipe Garcia
While trucking lobbies opposed to the new U.S.-Mexico cross-border truck pilot program, have been more than vocal—even to the point of one having filed a federal suit against the bilateral agreement—there’s at least one expert on this segment of international trade who sees the deal struck by Mexico President Felipe Calderón and President Barack Obama in a clearly positive light.
For starters, Troy Ryley, managing director of Transplace Mexico, told FleetOwner that once Mexican carriers are enrolled in the pilot program, Texas “could become a center for distribution as Mexican trucks won’t be going far north unless they have backhauls secured, which will be difficult as Mexican carriers will not be allowed to carry U.S. domestic freight.” In addition, he said the presence of new terminal operations set up by Mexican carriers on the U.S. side of the border could help relieve some of the [freight] capacity issues in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Tucson and Albuquerque.”
Ryley pointed out that Transplace’s market expertise in this arena rests on it being a leading non-asset based third-party logistics (3PL) services provider and a “Top 10 freight capacity broker” in the U.S. with deep experience aiding customers shipping to Mexico and beyond.
Speaking to the very guts of the agreement in terms of free-trade fairness, Ryley remarked that “Keeping Mexican carriers out would be like the U.S. keeping out all the international airlines” that have landing rights here. “Every country in the world flies in here, but somehow we cannot put Mexican trucks on our roads?
“The reality is,” he continued, [that Mexican carriers] buy from the same trucking suppliers [as U.S. fleets] and many of the trucks run here today were built in Mexico. The capabilities are there [in Mexico] and that includes driving trucks.”
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