Mexico’s President Vicente Fox said June 11 that his government will maintain pressure on the United States until Mexican truckers have the access to the United States that was promised under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "We will not give in until they eliminate the protectionist and discriminatory barriers," Fox said during a luncheon at Mexico Transporta 2002 in Mexico City, Mexico. The conference was organized by Canacar, the Mexican Chamber of Cargo Transportation.
Manuel Gomez Garcia, Canacar president, urged the Fox administration to take retaliatory action against US trucking companies for the punitive regulations that are being imposed on Mexican trucking companies that want to operate in the United States. The US-Mexico border originally was scheduled to open to cross-border truck traffic in 1995 under NAFTA. The Bush administration plans to finally open the border in July, but Mexican carriers must meet a number of preconditions before they will be allowed to operate in the United States.