NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico For 14 years, the United States government failed to live up to an agreement it signed with Canada and Mexico that seemingly gave the green light for over-the-road trucks from Mexico to travel anywhere in the U.S.

That ended, somewhat, early this month when the U.S. began a year-long demonstration program that allows about 1,000 Mexican trucks on U.S. roadways. Mexican buses are not included in the plan.

However, a similar number of U.S. trucks will have access to Mexican highways.

Even though President Bush made opening the border an early priority, it has taken his administration nearly seven years to run a gauntlet of legal, environmental, safety and Congressional challenges to get the pilot program on the road.

In adopting the plan, Bush was carrying out a portion of the North American Free Trade Agreement that was negotiated by the first President Bush, ratified by Congress, and then endorsed and implemented by President Clinton in 1993.

Given the unrelenting opposition to the program by the Teamsters union, one would have thought the limited reintroduction of Mexican trucks to U.S. highways was one of the most daunting transportation challenges the nation faces.

In most respects its a minor matter. The program will allow a few hundred Mexican trucks. More than 7 million trucks roll down U.S. roads every day. Will anyone but disgruntled Teamsters even notice the Mexican big rigs?

Twenty-five years ago, over-the-road trucks from Mexico and Canada traveled at will throughout the U.S. Then a moratorium banned new Mexican carriers (but not Canadian truckers) from sending trucks beyond certain commercial zones just inside our borders.

The U.S. Department of Transportation says it has spent $500 million since 1995 to modernize border safety facilities and hire and train the more than 500 federal and state inspectors who check trucks crossing the border every day.

There are plenty of skeptics out there who insist that still isnt enough.

We're about to find out.