Washington, April 14 - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has sent the White House recommendations for ending a NAFTA trucking dispute, which is expected to be high on the agenda when President Barack Obama visits Mexico later this week, an administration aide has confirmed.
The White House declined to say whether the administration would make an announcement before the president's trip on a proposal to allow long-haul Mexican trucks to operate in the United States.
"I don't want to get in a position to either suggest that there will or there won't be one," said Denis McDonough, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. "What I am telling you is that we're aggressively working it and when we get an agreement we'll announce it."
Last month, Mexico slapped retaliatory tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of U.S. goods after Obama signed an omnibus spending bill that canceled a pilot program allowing Mexican long-haul trucks to operate in the United States.
Since then, LaHood has met with 23 members of Congress and various business and labor groups in an effort to come up with a plan to reopen the market to Mexican trucks before Obama visits Mexico on his way to the regional Summit of the Americas meeting in Trinidad this weekend.
"The Department of Transportation has submitted a set of principles to the White House on cross-border trucking that is consistent with our NAFTA commitments. And those principles ... are currently under review," an administration official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The United States committed in the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico to open its roads to Mexican trucks, but the U.S. Teamsters union has continued to fight that, saying Mexican trucks are unsafe.
The administration aide declined to provide details of LaHood's recommendations, but said ensuring "all trucks on the road adhere to the highest standard of safety" was a key element of the principles.
Mexico says it has already taken a number of steps to address safety concerns and Congress' decision to shut down the pilot program was really motivated by protectionism.
Last week, a coalition of about 140 U.S. business, manufacturing, food and agricultural organization urged Obama in a letter to quickly resolve the dispute.
"Over $1.5 billion in U.S. manufactured products and $900 million in U.S. agriculture products are impacted by the retaliatory tariffs. The retaliation puts over 12,000 agricultural and 14,000 manufacturing jobs at risk," the business groups said.
LaHood has said that any proposal to reopen the U.S. market to Mexican trucks would have to win congressional approval.
Mexican trucks are required to offload their exports into U.S. vehicles at the border, a slow process that trade experts says costs U.S. and Mexican companies billions of dollars a year and drives up consumer costs.