(Bloomberg) — Mexican truckers protesting Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s controversial border crackdown ended their blockade of a key international bridge and are switching to other crossing sites.
Commercial traffic has resumed over the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said on Thursday. The crossing is where truckers upset about massive delays caused by Abbott’s measure began a blockade on Monday.
The blockade was called off after an organized criminal gang set fire to some of the trucks and then engaged in a gun battle with responding police officers, local media reported. Trucking groups have since shifted their attention to other crossing points, where overflow traffic from the initial protest already had created miles-long queues of vegetable, fruit, electronics and auto-parts cargoes, the reports said.
Abbott ordered state troopers to begin safety inspections on northbound Mexican commercial trucks last week in what he described as an effort to crack down on undocumented immigrants and smuggling. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican like Abbott, warned earlier this week that the dispute would trigger food shortages and push the price of avocados to $5 apiece.
“We have called on Governor Abbott to stop these unnecessary and duplicative inspections that are choking a key trade artery into our country,” White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday.
(Adds White House comment in last paragraph. A previously version of the story contained an incorrect day of the week in the second paragraph.)
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