The nearshoring trend in moving production closer to U.S. shores may have gotten a lot of attention in recent years, but federal trade statistics show that truck traffic between the U.S. and Mexico has actually been growing fast for at least two decades.
Since 2000, the number of trucks entering the U.S. from Canada have been decreasing while in contrast the number of trucks from Mexico have increased, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics North American freight data.
And BTS Border Crossing data reveals that, starting in 2017, the trajectory of incoming trucks from Canada and Mexico began to diverge. The data indicate that Mexican freight flows are growing faster than Canada in a long-term trend that reflects changes in manufacturing, trade patterns, and supply chains in the North American freight market, BTS said.
Specifically, from 2000 to 2023, the number of trucks from Canada decreased 21.6% from 7,048,128 to 5,526,056 while trucks from Mexico increased 62.6% from 4,525,579 to 7,356,659.
Likewise, from 2019 to 2023, the number of commercial trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico rose 14.2% from 6,440,255 to 7,356,659 while trucks from Canada fell 2.7% from 5,681,155 to 5,526,056.
Those indicators are also mirrored in in terms of dollar value of truck freight, BTS TransBorder data shows. Since the pandemic in 2021, the value of freight flows carried by truck with Mexico have increased while simultaneously decreasing with Canada. From April 2020 to October 2024, the value of U.S. freight flows with Canada by truck increased 86.4% from $17.8 billion to $33.1 billion while the same measure of freight flows with Mexico increased 166.3% from $20.8 billion to $55.3 billion.
