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Few Mexican truckers want to roam U.S. highways

By Deborah Tedford

LAREDO, Texas, Oct 24 (Reuters) - It is just after 8 a.m. and six Mexican truck tractors are lined up in back of an enormous Target department store parking lot, four more are parked at an adjacent supermarket, four are at the Wal-Mart store across the freeway.

Aloft in their cabs, the drivers sleep as required by the U.S. Transportation Department while they wait for their next load, oblivious to street-level noise.

These drivers specialize in carrying loads back and forth over the border and don't venture far onto American highways because, for now, the United States bars long-distance Mexican trucks from its roads.

But these truckers say they are likely to remain close to home even after the United States lifts that barrier because the profits in long-haul U.S. trips don't look promising.

Citing safety concerns, the United States has for two years delayed compliance with the North American Free Trade Act, which requires Mexican trucks be allowed onto U.S. highways.

But U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said on Wednesday that the two countries were holding talks this week that could finally open the border to Mexican trucks.

Mineta said he would speak to Mexico's ministers of transport and economy at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week in Mexico to go through a final list of what remains to be done to get Mexican trucks on U.S. roads. He did not set a potential date for the restrictions to be lifted.

Under current regulations, Mexican trucks may cross into the United States but must deposit their cargo within an average of 20 miles (32 km) of the border for a local transport company to pick up and deliver to its final destination.

In the border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, longtime customs broker Felix Canales maintains Mexican truckers are not afraid of U.S. safety inspections, but they are leery of making a premature jump into a foreign transportation market.

Both Mexican and U.S. truckers will likely wait until they can establish an international customer base before rolling onto foreign highways.

"The system we have now has been very efficient for importers and exporters to get their goods cheaper and faster," Canales says. "I don't see in the near future Mexican carriers going into the United States."

Trucking companies don't make money by dropping off a load in another city and going home empty, he reasons.

Everyday more than 12,500 tractor-trailer rigs troll the streets of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, crossing more than 9,000 loads of raw materials into Mexico and finished products into the United States.

NO ONE AT THE PARTY

In anticipation of restrictions being lifted, the border is ready and safety inspections demanded by the U.S. Congress are set, but there's little sign Mexican 18-wheelers want to be on U.S. highways.

"It's like you had a banquet hall and you gave a party, but no one showed up," says Rene Gonzalez, legislative liaison for Laredo, Texas -- the largest inland transportation center on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The United States has spent more than $113 million to ready safety checkpoints at the border, but so far, only 96 Mexican companies have applied for permits to drive long-haul routes northward, according to the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Agency spokesman David Longo says the agency is not expecting a large number of requests for long-haul permits.

Mexican companies are making money running transfer, or drayage, trucks into border cities' commercial zones, experts say.

Inside the commercial zones, Mexican 18-wheelers hauling goods northward and Canadian and U.S. tractor-trailers with Latin America-bound products unhook their trailers to swap loads with the transfer trucks making the exchange.

Because the drivers know the ropes and the trucks are frequently inspected, the trucks are able to slip back and forth across the border with relative ease.