For too long, most of America’s truck drivers and motor carriers have played by the rules while others cheat. They get the licenses, meet the safety requirements, pay the taxes, and do the work. But when it comes to cabotage—the illegal hauling of domestic freight inside the U.S. by foreign drivers on temporary visas—the cheaters are winning. And Washington has looked the other way.
This isn’t a gray area. The law is crystal clear: Mexican and Canadian drivers can bring goods into this country and take goods back out. That is legitimate cross-border commerce permitted under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and this vital freight flow helps sustain America’s supply chain.
However, what Mexican and Canadian drivers cannot do is haul loads from Dallas to Houston, or from Phoenix to Chicago. Yet that is exactly what is happening. And it’s happening on a seemingly large scale.
This isn’t competition. It’s theft. Each illegal load is a paycheck stolen directly from an American driver. Each scheme that puts foreign drivers behind the wheel for domestic hauls undercuts the companies that follow the law.
And sadly, it is a group of U.S. carriers that flout these rules to gain an unlawful competitive advantage over law abiding companies, distorting the marketplace and putting compliant operators at risk of closure. And each time Washington fails to act, it rewards lawbreakers while punishing the very workers who keep our economy moving.
We’ve seen the proof. In Nogales, Arizona, one U.S. carrier pocketed $2.4 million in illegal revenue by using Mexican B-1 visa drivers for domestic hauls. A B-1 visa does not permit that driver to haul point-to-point in the U.S. Another raked in $1.3 million before it was finally shut down. These aren’t isolated cases. They are part of a pattern of willful lawbreaking that distorts the market and hollows out good-paying American jobs.
And if Customs and Border Protection officers can find multiple violations during just a handful of checkpoint inspections, imagine how many violations go undetected every single day. Cabotage isn’t a fringe problem—it’s a business model for companies willing to sell out American workers.
The Department of Homeland Security has the sole authority to end this. If DHS can devote the resources to target the carriers that are profiting from this illegal act, it will send an unmistakable message that will reverberate across the industry: break the law, and you will be shut down.
The Trump administration has already shown it is willing to take bold action on behalf of the American trucking industry. That is why we are confident the administration will meet this challenge, too. Cracking down on cabotage is the natural next step in its commitment to fairness and the rule of law. By enforcing existing statutes, the Trump administration can protect American jobs, restore integrity to our supply chains, and prove once again that it will not allow foreign drivers and lawless carriers to undermine an industry that delivers nearly three-quarters of our nation’s freight.
There is no middle ground. Enforce the law or abandon American workers. Protect the men and women who keep our shelves stocked or allow them to be undercut by bad businesses illegally employing foreign truck drivers. The choice is as stark as it is urgent.
The American trucking industry has never asked for special treatment. All we ask is a fair chance to compete.