US Transportation Department announces it will allow Mexican cargo trucks in with screening

The U.S. Department of Transportation says it will soon allow Mexican trucking firms to apply for authorization to make long-haul cross-border runs, potentially ending a longstanding dispute.

It says it expects the move to permanently end Mexico's on-again, off-again retaliatory tariffs on $2 billion in U.S. imports.

The department said Friday that data from a three-year pilot program that ended in October "showed that companies from Mexico had violation, driver, and vehicle out-of-service rates that met the level of safety as American and Canadian-domiciled motor carriers."

The department did not say when applications would start.

The opening is a long-delayed provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. It has been stalled for years by concerns it could put highway safety and American jobs at risk.