Tuesday, October 27, 2026
The news that moves freight
Trucking & Rail Oct 27, 2026 · 8 min read

Mexico’s main trucking chamber stops work with no end date

Mexico’s biggest truckers’ chamber walks off, and stands alone. CANACAR, Mexico’s national freight trucking chamber, began an indefinite stoppage at 6:30am on Monday 26 October. It was set to spread from Mexico City to 19 states. Its grievances include 1,105 cargo truck robberies and 15 drivers killed through September (Latin Times). In our view, this one is serious because the chamber has spent the past year opposing blockades. But most other trucking groups took the government’s offer of talks, so it is isolated. Mexico’s highways move about 1.6m tons of goods a day (Latin Times). Our call: CANACAR stands down by Friday 6 November.

Mexico’s trucking establishment joins the blockade, and does it alone

At 6:30am on Monday 26 October, CANACAR, Mexico’s national freight trucking chamber, began an indefinite national stoppage. According to Latin Times, it was set to start at major freight hubs in the Mexico City metro area and spread into 19 states. It has no end date. Mexico’s highway network moves about 1.6m tons of goods a day, according to the same report.

Our view: this matters more than the usual Monday blockade. Over the past year, the highway protests that hit Mexican freight were led by other trucker groups and farmers. CANACAR stood on the other side, calling for dialogue. Now the chamber itself has stopped. That tells you how far conditions on Mexican roads have slipped. But CANACAR has moved just as most other groups chose talks with the government. That leaves it isolated, and we think isolated stoppages end quickly.

What CANACAR wants

There are two sets of complaints. The first is crime. Latin Times reports that “Through September 2026, 1,105 cargo truck robberies had been recorded and 15 drivers killed on Mexican highways.” El Financiero adds the poor state of the roads and excessive tow-truck charges.

The second is money. El Financiero reports that CANACAR opposes a change in the 2027 Revenue Law (Ley de Ingresos, the annual law that sets federal taxes). Today, a carrier can credit up to 50% of its toll spending against income tax, under a limit of MXN 300m. The proposed change cuts that limit to MXN 250m. For carriers above the new limit, that means losing a tax break on a cost they cannot avoid. Latin Times describes the broader complaint as opposition to cuts in trucker tax incentives in the proposed 2027 federal budget.

The chamber’s slogan is #ElAutotransporteNoAguantaMás, roughly “trucking can’t take any more” (Latin Times). Its president, Augusto Ramos Melo, put the aim this way: “No queremos detener a México. Queremos que México nos escuche.” In English: “We don’t want to stop Mexico. We want Mexico to hear us.”

Where the trucks are stopping

El Financiero published a list of roads that could be blocked. It stressed that the list could change during the day. The points that matter most for freight:

  • Mexico City and State of Mexico: the México–Pachuca, México–Querétaro and México–Toluca highways, the Chamapa–Lechería road including the stretch towards AIFA (Felipe Ángeles International Airport, Mexico City’s cargo-heavy second airport), and the Arco Norte ring road where it meets the México–Pachuca. Industrial corridors in Cuautitlán Izcalli, Tultitlán, Tepotzotlán, Tlalnepantla and Toluca–Lerma were also named.
  • Guanajuato: Federal Highway 45 and routes from Irapuato to Silao and Salamanca. This is the Bajío auto belt.
  • Querétaro: the Palmillas and Celaya toll booths.
  • Jalisco: several toll booths around Guadalajara and the Guadalajara–Colima and Guadalajara–México highways.
  • Baja California: 14 points in Mexicali and Tijuana, including the Carretera Internacional next to Tijuana’s import customs house.

AIFA said blockades near it could begin at 8:00am and would not affect its operations, but asked travellers to take care (El Financiero). Volaris warned that the blockades could “ocasionar afectaciones viales en los principales accesos carreteros y avenidas principales”, meaning road disruption at the main highway access points and avenues.

Latin Times says the corridor carried nearly $95bn of goods between Mexico and the US in July 2026 alone. It names perishables, auto parts and just-in-time deliveries as the freight most at risk.

Why CANACAR is out on its own

The key fact is who did not join. Latin Times reports that CANACAR launched the stoppage after most rival trucking groups agreed to government talks. The Interior Ministry (Segob) noted that most of the sector’s organisations had accepted the government’s invitation to talks, and urged CANACAR to return to the table rather than go ahead with the stoppage.

That is a reversal of roles. When farmers’ union UNTA blocked roads from 27 October 2025, CANACAR warned: “Each hour of interruption in road flow results in multimillion-peso losses.” It added: “Only through dialogue can we prevent further economic and social damage” (Mexico Business News, 31 October 2025). In December 2025, it called threatened holiday blockades “ajenas a los cauces institucionales”, outside institutional channels, and said the groups behind them “deberán asumir la responsabilidad por las consecuencias”, must take responsibility for the consequences (La Razón). And when ANTAC and farmers’ groups called an “indefinite” protest across 20 states on 6 April 2026, CANACAR reportedly distanced itself and backed dialogue (CAP Logistics, citing El País).

We read this two ways. First, the proposed toll-credit change threatens CANACAR members in the pocket, in a way crime alone did not. Second, a chamber that has argued for talks for a year cannot stay out for long without looking like the groups it criticised. Both point to a short stoppage that ends with a deal on the tax point.

What happened last time

Recent blockades give a guide to the damage. On 24 November 2025, farmers and truckers blocked highways in more than 20 states. Customs at Manzanillo, Mexico’s busiest Pacific container port, stopped for a time and restarted at midday. Northbound trucks in Juárez were moved from the Bridge of the Americas to the Santa Teresa and Zaragoza crossings (FreightWaves). C.H. Robinson said similar events had caused transit delays of 4 to 8 hours and customs delays of 2 to 4 hours. Veronica González, its director of North American surface transportation for Mexico, said: “These diversions are creating congestion, but freight continues to move as of this morning.”

That is the pattern we expect again: congestion and rerouting, not a full shutdown of the border. The difference this time is the Tijuana customs point. In our view, a blockade there could quickly back up trucks heading for the Otay Mesa crossing. Otay Mesa handled about $60.9bn of truck freight in 2024, and Laredo about $282.0bn, based on US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) figures quoted by CAP Logistics. Laredo took 38.8% of all inbound trucks from Mexico in 2025, on the same source. Laredo is not on the blockade list, but much of its freight starts on the México–Querétaro road and in the Bajío, which are.

The trade backdrop

The stoppage lands while US–Mexico tariff talks are stuck. RFD-TV reported on 26 October that talks may not resume until after the US midterm elections, and that Mexico’s ambassador has acknowledged they have stalled. The US still charges 50% tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminium and 25% on autos, with some exceptions, and there is no deal text or signing date (Latin Times). On 23 October, President Trump told reporters: “We’re very close to a deal with Mexico.” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum had said on 20 October that “some issues remain” (Latin Times). RFD-TV puts the US trade deficit with Mexico at around $156bn so far this year, which is the number Washington is trying to shrink. In our view, that makes quick tariff relief unlikely while the US side is focused on the deficit and the midterms. Public comments for the next USMCA review are due on 12 January 2027 (Latin Times). For a carrier squeezed by crime and now by tax, there is no help coming from the trade side either.

What forwarders should do this week

  • Expect delays of hours, not days, on inland legs. Use the C.H. Robinson range of 4 to 8 hours in transit as the planning figure.
  • Watch Tijuana first. Ask Mexican carriers each morning whether the Carretera Internacional is open. If it is not, plan for queues at Otay Mesa and consider Mexicali or Tecate.
  • Move Bajío freight early. Highway 45 and the Querétaro toll booths sit on the main route north from the auto plants to Laredo. Pull pickups forward a day where you can.
  • Check AIFA access. The airport says operations are normal, but its access roads are on the list. Allow extra time for cargo drop-offs and collections.
  • Read your contracts. An indefinite stoppage is the kind of event that tests force majeure (contract clauses that excuse delay from events outside a party’s control) and detention charges (fees for keeping equipment beyond agreed time). Agree who pays for waiting time now, not after the invoice arrives.
  • Tell shippers early. A short note today on which lanes may slip, and by how much, is worth more than an apology on Friday. Perishables and auto parts are the cargo most at risk, so start with those accounts.
  • Do not switch modes in a panic. Last time freight kept moving through diversions. Rail and air carry their own costs and lead times.

Our prediction

We expect CANACAR to lift the national stoppage by Friday 6 November 2026, after a meeting with Segob. We expect the settlement to centre on the toll-credit limit, with the government keeping it at or near MXN 300m, plus fresh promises on highway security. If the stoppage is still running on 6 November, that will be because the government has refused to move on the tax change. In that case, expect delays at the Tijuana and Bajío points to grow from hours into a day or more.

Sources