NAFTA surface trade posts record y-y drop
WASHINGTON — The latest Canada-U.S. surface transportation trade numbers are in and it’s more of the same.
Land transportation trade between the two countries plummeted down 40.3 percent ($29.2 billion) in May compared to the same month 2008, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Total trade between the U.S. and both its NAFTA partners, including Mexico, was down 35.4 percent from May 2008, the largest decline from the same month of the previous year on record.
Surface transportation trade landed at $47.9 billion, making May the fifth consecutive month with a year-to-year decline greater than 27 percent.
Surface transportation consists largely of freight movements by truck, rail and pipeline. About 88 percent of U.S. trade by value with Canada and Mexico moves on land.
Recent truck traffic numbers reported by Ontario-Michigan border crossings — including the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor-Detroit, which carries nearly a quarter of all Canada-US trade — corroborate that truck volumes have fallen steeply over the last year.
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