SAN DIEGO — Nearshoring continues to drive freight between the U.S. and Mexico, however a shrinking pool of cross-border drivers, harder customs enforcement and more and more subtle cargo theft might make transferring that freight harder and costly, trade executives stated Tuesday.
The challenges have been mentioned throughout “The Nearshoring Replace: USA-Mexico Freight” at Trimble Perception 2026 in San Diego.
The panel featured Ben Enriquez of Transport Capability Companies; Carime Duck, a licensed customs dealer and president of the San Diego Customs Dealer Affiliation; and Ricardo Malacara, gross sales director at cargo-security know-how supplier Overhaul.
Trimble Perception 2026 Convention was held Sunday by way of Tuesday, included 1,200 attendees and featured greater than 200 info periods and product demonstrations.
Enriquez stated nearshoring hasn’t disappeared regardless of tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty which have dominated headlines over the previous yr.
“The truth is that nearshoring, the ball was already rolling,” Enriquez stated. “There have been already manufacturing vegetation and expansions being performed, they usually proceed to occur.”
Enriquez pointed to continued progress in two-way U.S.-Mexico commerce as proof of the combination between the international locations’ manufacturing sectors. He stated many merchandise, significantly automotive parts, can cross the border a number of occasions throughout manufacturing.
Firms are taking a extra cautious method due to uncertainty surrounding the United States-Mexico-Canada Settlement (USMCA), he stated, however “nearshoring is a actuality.”
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Driver enforcement places stress on cross-border capability
On the similar time that freight demand is rising, Enriquez stated the availability of drivers able to dealing with cross-border shipments is coming underneath stress.
Enforcement involving Mexican B-1 visa drivers, non-domiciled business driver’s licenses and English-language necessities has modified the economics and working fashions of cross-border trucking firms, he stated.
B-1 drivers usually can transport worldwide freight into the U.S. and return with worldwide cargo however can not interact in home point-to-point transportation, generally known as cabotage.
Enriquez stated stepped-up enforcement towards drivers accused of improper home strikes has eliminated drivers from the market. Mixed with restrictions affecting non-domiciled CDL holders, that’s lowering the pool of drivers out there to each cross-border and home carriers.
Some Mexican trucking firms that established U.S. operations to offer door-to-door service are retreating to the normal mannequin of transferring trailers or freight to U.S. carriers on the border as a result of they’ll now not discover sufficient drivers, Enriquez stated.
“The market has modified in quite a lot of methods, and these points are making it lose quite a lot of drivers,” he stated.
Rising gasoline bills are placing extra stress on small and midsize trucking firms, significantly people who should pay for gasoline instantly however wait 30 to 45 days to obtain cost from clients.
The end result, Enriquez stated, is that some fleets are lowering the variety of vehicles they function as a result of they lack both drivers or enough working capital.
“We’re seeing that the amount is growing,” Enriquez stated, at the same time as cross-border trucking provide contracts.
Duck stated the capability crunch is already displaying up in Southern California through the fall peak transport season.
Driver availability has change into harder and trucking charges are growing, she stated, with gasoline prices contributing to repeated worth will increase.
Malacara stated decreased capability may also create safety vulnerabilities.
“The shortage of capability on drivers and vehicles that may do cross-border will increase the operation, will increase the dwell occasions, will increase the handoffs, which in flip will increase the danger,” he stated.
Freight ready for drivers can find yourself at switch areas that is probably not safe, whereas firms underneath stress to search out capability can take dangers when hiring unfamiliar carriers or drivers.
Nearshoring concentrates cargo-theft threat
Nearshoring has additionally concentrated extra freight on Mexico’s current transportation infrastructure, significantly by way of the Bajío manufacturing area of central Mexico, Malacara stated.
Highway, rail, airport and port infrastructure haven’t expanded as rapidly as manufacturing funding, leading to better volumes of helpful cargo touring alongside most of the similar corridors.
“Concentrating freight, concentrating high-value transferring items in the identical freeway has elevated the danger for all of the shippers and all of the cargo house owners,” Malacara stated.
Malacara stated cargo theft has shifted geographically, with theft reducing in some conventional scorching spots whereas growing within the Bajío area. He cited an 11% year-over-year improve in theft there, with about 80% of incidents involving violence or threats of violence.
The thieves focusing on business freight are more and more organized and technologically succesful, he stated.
“This isn’t an informal exercise,” Malacara stated. “These are organized, or these are structured organizations that plan, which have know-how.”
Prison teams use GPS jammers, plan routes and working occasions and may generally receive inside info figuring out helpful shipments, he stated.
Meals and drinks stay probably the most incessantly stolen merchandise as a result of they’re simple to resell and tough to hint, adopted by development supplies, auto elements and electronics. Prescription drugs are additionally turning into a extra distinguished goal, Malacara stated.
Merely placing a GPS machine on a trailer isn’t sufficient safety, he stated, as a result of thieves geared up with sign jammers can defeat fundamental monitoring techniques inside seconds.
Firms as an alternative want plans specifying what occurs when monitoring is disrupted, which authorities needs to be contacted and the way safety companions ought to reply.
“You could cease treating the GPS, the dot within the map, as your information,” Malacara stated.
Customs compliance turns into a part of nearshoring technique
Duck stated firms contemplating manufacturing in Mexico additionally have to rethink a fundamental assumption about USMCA: Making a product in Mexico doesn’t robotically make the product eligible for preferential tariff remedy.
“You could take a look at your provide chain,” Duck stated.
A producer may assemble furnishings in Mexico, for instance, whereas sourcing supplies from one other nation that forestall the completed product from qualifying underneath USMCA guidelines of origin.
Duck stated customs specialists ought to subsequently be concerned a lot earlier in sourcing, engineering and manufacturing choices — a course of she described as “classification engineering.”
“There must be somebody who understands the customs aspect or the availability chain side of it and be within the conversations of engineering and manufacturing of those merchandise,” she stated.
File preserving is turning into more and more essential as customs authorities demand extra details about classifications, sourcing choices and transactions, she added.
AI strikes from response to prevention
Expertise and synthetic intelligence are more and more being deployed to handle that rising complexity.
Duck stated Customs is utilizing AI as a part of enforcement efforts, whereas customs brokers are adopting the know-how as a secondary compliance verify to determine lacking info and clerical errors.
Transportation suppliers are additionally automating cargo updates, offering brokers with almost instantaneous notifications when vehicles go away ports or cross the border.
“I don’t see prefer it’s taking jobs,” Duck stated. “I believe it’s giving us extra visibility.”
Malacara stated Overhaul makes use of AI to research thousands and thousands of knowledge factors to determine higher-risk lanes, occasions, commodities and shipments.
The know-how can set off warnings to drivers getting into high-risk areas, detect potential GPS jamming and determine potential fraud involving DOT numbers, payments of lading and invoices.
For cargo safety, Malacara stated the target ought to more and more be prevention relatively than recovering freight after it has already disappeared.
“For us, a recovered load, it’s an indication of our job not being properly performed,” he stated.
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Shippers urged to safe capability now
Enriquez stated shippers ought to use the present atmosphere to diversify their provider networks relatively than relying on a single transportation supplier.
With trucking firms lowering capability and nearshoring persevering with to increase, carriers and shippers ought to start strengthening relationships earlier than freight demand accelerates once more, he stated.
“I believe proper now, the secret is safe capability and kind partnerships,” Enriquez stated.
He stated the emergence of extra mini-bids over the previous a number of months suggests shippers are already reassessing their transportation networks.
“As a shipper, I’d suggest you to get extra arrows in your quiver and just remember to have all of your capability coated,” Enriquez stated.
Duck provided the same suggestion on the compliance aspect: Firms ought to perceive each participant of their provide chains earlier than a disruption happens and preserve common communication with brokers, shippers, receivers and transportation suppliers.
Malacara’s recommendation centered on safety.
“Don’t go away your safety plan for final,” he stated.
Safety plans needs to be tailor-made by lane, commodity, day and time and frequently up to date as prison ways and geographic dangers change.
“It needs to be a recurring occasion the place any person at your group is considering the danger of transferring cargo inside Mexico, inside the U.S., and crossing the border,” Malacara stated.
Why it issues: Nearshoring could also be producing extra cross-border freight simply as carriers face tighter driver availability, greater working prices and safety dangers, growing the significance of securing transportation capability earlier than demand accelerates.
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