WASHINGTON – One of the final hurdles in allowing Mexican trucks to operate in the U.S. has been removed as American officials announced this week that safety inspectors have the green light to inspect trucks on Mexican soil before crossing the border.

According to Associate Press, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters and her Mexican counterpart, Luis Tellez, announced the groundbreaking agreement.

MeX Marks the Spot: A medallion in the pavement literally
marks the spot where the U.S. and Mexican border meet

Like as in Canada, for the first time U.S. inspectors will to go into Mexico to perform onsite equipment safety and facility audits. Inspectors can also check the licences, insurance, driving and medical records of Mexican drivers before they cross the border.

Currently, Mexican truckers are restricted to a 20-mile commercial zone north of the U.S.-Mexico border, at which point they must transfer goods to U.S. carriers for transport to the rest of the country.

Peters couldn’t say exactly the border would open fully. But U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, said she will hold a hearing on March 8 “to investigate whether the administration has fulfilled both the spirit and the letter of the law,” AP reports.

Regardless, it looks as if the seven-year-old trade tiff between the two countries is one step closer to concluding. The Bush Administration, acknowledging its obligation under NAFTA, has been trying to lift the restriction to Mexican carriers since 2001.

However, the move has been tied up in the courts thanks to interference by U.S. trucking companies, labor unions, and environmental groups, who, despite their very different MO’s, seem to agree on this issue.

Those interests have argued for years that older, unsafe equipment — which does not conform to U.S. environmental laws — would flood U.S. highways and compromise the country’s standards.

— with files from Associate Press