The Biden Administration has imposed a new order that will bar truck drivers from Canada and Mexico from crossing into the U.S. as of January 22 unless they are fully vaccinated against Covid.
Trucks usually move about $700 billion worth of freight between the U.S., Canada and Mexico each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics— a number that is on track to jump significantly in 2021 as pandemic restrictions have eased, and consumer demand has remained high.
That means the mandate could cause some serious supply chain disruptions, as data from Oxford University shows that less than 50% of Mexicans and 80% of Canadians are fully vaccinated
Meanwhile, the Canada Trucking Association estimates that over 20% (around 22,000) of Canadian drivers could stop crossing the border because of the mandateand that another 16,000 U.S. drivers follow suit when a similar Canadian mandate takes effect in January.
The impact on the mandate for Mexico is less clear at this time, although a report from Freight Waves says that Mexican trucking companies are not allowed to operate in the U.S., and when freight is trucked from Mexico to the U.S. it is brought to the border by Mexican truckers and usually switched to a U.S. truck for the final leg of the journey.
