La Jornada: EU visa withdrawn from 20 thousand Mexican drivers: leader of Canacar

Despite the shortage of heavy transport operators in the North American region, the United States withdrew 20,000 work visas from Mexican drivers for not fluent in English, said Augusto Ramos Melo, president of the National Chamber of Cargo Transportation (Canacar).

When presenting at a conference an assessment of his first 100 days at the head of the organization, the business leader warned that the cancellation and limitation of visas for Mexican drivers in the neighboring country to the north, derived from an executive order by President Trump in April 2025, has exacerbated the lack of operators.

“Of the 194 thousand foreign operators who worked in that country, 20 thousand visas have been withdrawn from Mexicans, affecting the logistics of binational trade and generating pressure on the supply of freight.”

Faced with this situation, Canacar implemented a virtual training program in English for operators in order to comply with the linguistic requirements demanded by the US authorities.

Ramos Melo added that the cost of freight in that country is rising, and although it is not an “alarming” increase, a gradual impact is expected. He added that it has been difficult to track down more data related to the 20,000 operators, since it is not known whether they were contracted with binational companies.

The leader of Canacar explained that in 2025, motor transportation had an additional expense of 22,15 million pesos due to the increase in diesel, one of the most relevant inputs in the cost structure.

However, he highlighted the importance of the weekly subsidies applied by the Mexican government through the IEPS, as this measure has helped mitigate price volatility and keep a liter of diesel below 27 pesos.

Likewise, Ramos Melo indicated that motor transport robberies decreased 17 percent annually between January and May, registering 2,255 incidents compared to 2,707 in the same period of 2025. However, he warned that violence remains high, with 1,289 robberies with violence and 966 without violence.

He pointed out that 93 percent of the robberies are concentrated in 10 states, mainly the state of Mexico, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato and Michoacán; “The majority are violent assaults that put the lives of the operators at risk.”