In a joint White House press conference with Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, President Obama announced the two countries have a deal on the table to open U.S. highways to Mexican truck operators.
According to a BBC report, Obama said the U.S. and Mexico partners had "found a clear path to resolving" the issue that has clouded diplomatic relations for the two free-trade partners for 20 years.
The President said the proposed agreement deal would be headed next to Congress for approval. However, no details of the deal were noted in the online news report.
Although U.S. and Mexican trucks had been authorized to cross the shared border under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, the US has effectively refused to let Mexican trucks into the U.S. thanks to organized resistance here over the years that hat centered on whether those vehicles meet U.S. highway safety and environmental standards as well as security concerns in the age of terrorism.
The Mexican government retaliated last year by placing tariffs on a number of US goods after Congress killed funding for a pilot program that had allowed long-haul Mexican linehaul trucks over the border.
(Continue reading U.S. Strikes Deal to Allow Mexican Trucks)