Nearly 2,000 trucks stranded at Argentina-Chile border due to mandatory covid tests on drivers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Between 1,800 and 2,000 trucks have been forming long lines for two days on the Argentine side of the Cristo Redentor Pass, the most important border crossing with Chile due to covid tests ordered by Chilean authorities, Argentine carriers said on Tuesday, January 18.

“At some point, the supply chain is going to be cut off. It is not a funnel; it is a plug. In practice, the pass is closed,” Daniel Gallart of the Mendoza Truck Owners Association told AFP.

The situation at the border crossing in front of Mendoza province, in the Andes Mountains, was generated 48 hours ago when Chile tightened its sanitary controls on Argentine drivers, the Argentine Federation of Freight Transport Business Entities of Argentina said in a statement.

“We are talking about 2,000 or 1,800 trucks. They come from all over Mercosur. According to traffic statistics, 50% are Argentines, 30% Brazilians, and the rest from other countries,” said Gallart.

The transport federation demanded that Chile enable more attention posts now that stricter controls are back. “We do not question the sovereign measure of a country, but we do question the consequences of this decision. We are not against testing drivers, but this should be agile,” he said in a statement.

The delays imply losses of millions of dollars for the country’s international trade through Pacific ports, when international logistics are already complicated by the pandemic, according to the carriers, who demanded the formal intervention of the Foreign Ministry.

Some 900 Argentine trucks cross the Cristo Redentor pass daily from the Argentine province of Mendoza, 1,050 kilometers west of Buenos Aires. In 2018, more than 580,000 trucks crossed the Argentine-Chilean border there, a recent binational study estimated.

The two countries are advanced in their vaccination plans against Covid-19, and Chile has already arranged to start the application of a fourth dose. Of the 45 million Argentines, 86.1% have already received one dose, 75.2% have received two doses, and 21.4% have already received the booster.

However, Argentina is currently going through a wave of infections of the Omicron variant, with some 120,000 cases.

Chilean sources assure that the transit of Argentine tourists may aggravate delays to Chile, who are also obliged to comply with sanitary requirements.