The Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the US Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that trade using surface transportation between the US and its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners Canada and Mexico surged 18.1 percent in July 2011 compared to July 2010, totaling $72.4 billion. However, surface trade in July 2011 compared to the previous month registered a 6.7 percent decline although month-to-month changes can be affected by seasonal variations and other factors.
Surface trade between US and Mexico reached $29.9 billion in July, reflecting a 19.7 percent increase from July 2010, while US-Canada surface trade rose 17 percent to $42.5 billion in July.
Longer term trends indicate that surface trade in July jumped over 40 percent from July 2009, but is still only up 1 percent from pre-recessionary levels in July 2008.