DALLAS: A Mexican truck blockade at a key Texas bridge is diverting US-bound cargoes to far-flung crossings, worsening shipping snarls and raising the spectre of delivery disruptions for everything from avocados to auto parts.

       Truckers on the Mexican side of the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge are protesting Texas governor Greg Abbott’s stepped-up inspection effort.

       With commercial traffic at a total standstill at the Pharr-Reynosa chokepoint, 18-wheelers are being diverted to other Texas crossings, where the crush of trucks is exponentially increasing wait times to enter the United States.

       In the first six days of Abbott’s decree, almost one-fourth of the more than 3,400 commercial vehicles inspected “were placed out of service for serious safety violations that include defective brakes, defective tires and defective lighting,” according to the Department of Public Safety.

       Almost 12,000 violations were cited and 79 drivers were “placed out of service.”

       With temperatures forecast to reach 38 degree Celsius, produce hauled in unrefrigerated trucks is at risk of spoiling at a time of already rampant food inflation.

       About US$443bil (RM1.9 trillion) in electronics, fruit, nuts and machinery crossed into the United States via Texas-Mexico ports of entry last year, according to the Texas centre for border and economic and enterprise development at Texas A&M International University in Laredo.

       Texas has more than two dozen international bridges that link to the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Chihuahua. The dispute stems from Abbott’s decision last week to dispatch state police to inspect shipments flowing north into Texas in what he said would “ensure that Texans are not endangered by unsafe vehicles and their unsafe drivers.”

       The delays “are significantly impacting the local and regional supply chain, to the point that local trade associations are requesting that the Texas government provide relief of process change to the border truck inspection process,” said a White House official, who said the blame lies solely with state officials and not federal border patrol agents.

       On Tuesday, Mexico’s Deputy Trade Minister Luz Maria de la Mora sent a letter to the Republican leader of the second-largest US state requesting cooperation in finding ways to keep trade flowing.

       As a result of diversions away from the Pharr-Reynosa crossing, other bridges are seeing traffic swell and the combination of more trucks and the Abbott-ordered inspections mean wait times to cross at Laredo have jumped to four hours from the normal 30 minutes, said Jerry Maldonado, president of the Laredo Motor Carriers Association. —Bloomberg