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The United States and Mexico are close to signing a formal cross-border trucking agreement and could do so as early as this month, according to a Mexican government minister, Bloomberg reported.

Cross-border trucking between the United States and Mexico, already beset by political issues and road-safety concerns, faces a serious new problem in the form of a warning from the U.S. State Department.

Public comments on a proposal to allow Mexican longhaul trucks on U.S. highways were largely divided among those who urgently want retaliatory Mexican tariffs ended and those who fear the move would make the nation’s roads less safe and steal jobs from Americans.

If FMCSA can pay for the Mexican trucks to have EOBRs, why not U.S. trucks? Our government is helping out others and yet not putting or keeping the money here in the good old United States of America.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) is the latest member of Congress to send a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressing his strong opposition to a U.S. proposal to buy electronic onboard recorders for Mexican trucks that will travel within the United States.

The U.S. and Mexico agreed last week on a deal that would allow Mexican trucks to deliver to destinations in the United States and lead Mexico to drop $2.4 billion a year in retaliatory tariffs it has imposed on U.S. products.

The Mexican government, after the U.S. announced it would moving forward with talks to reopen its southern border to truck traffic,  said last week it was suspending the practice of rotating goods subject to punitive tariffs.

The Obama administration last week took the first step toward reinstituting commercial truck traffic between the United States and Mexico, although it said details would not be released for several months.

Mexico has continued its side of the cross-border trucking pilot program begun in 2007, although the United States ended its participation and has denied Mexican trucks authority to deliver to U.S. destinations, a Mexican official said.