Nonessential travel between the US and its two closest neighbors — Canada and Mexico — is expected remain blocked until at least late August amid spikes in confirmed coronavirus cases in large swaths of the US.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry announced today that it was extending its border restrictions until August 21.
Canada is also expected to remain closed until at least August 21.
The decisions to extend restrictions on both the northern and southern border come as the more than half of US states have paused or rolled back reopening plans and confirmed cases in the United States approach 3.5 million.
The extended restrictions on travel between the US and Canada will include stepped-up enforcement and surveillance at most Canadian land borders.
The Mexican Foreign Ministry said on its official Twitter today that “after checking the rise of the COVID-19 spread, Mexico proposed to the US the extension of all non-essential traffic restriction at the common border for 30 more days.”
“Both countries will continue looking to coordinate the sanitary measures at the border region. The measures will be valid until August 21, 2020,” the ministry added.
Both borders have been closed to non-essential travel since March, although the administration’s actions on limiting travel across the southern border also seemed designed to curb migration to the United States, a pillar of Trump’s immigration agenda.
President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed the matter briefly during a phone call Monday morning, according to Trudeau’s office.
On Tuesday, the White House provided a readout of the call that did not mention an extension of the border closure.
Trudeau is expected to formally announce the decision later this week.
“We recognize that the situation continues to be complex in the United States in regards to Covid-19,” Trudeau said during a Monday press conference. “Every month we have been able to extend the border closures to all but essential goods and services, and those discussions are ongoing with the United States right now as we are a week from the next deadline for closures. We’re going to continue to work hard to keep Canadians safe and to keep our economies flowing and we will have more to say later this week, I’m sure.”
Mexico’s decision on extending the border restrictions comes after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, said the pandemic “is losing intensity” after meeting with his health cabinet on Sunday.
“I want to tell you that the report is positive, is good, the conclusion is that the pandemic is decreasing, is losing intensity,” AMLO said in a video address to the nation.
It also comes less than a week after the Mexican President met with Trump at the White House — the first trip Lopez Obrador has made outside of Mexico since taking office in December of 2018.
Truck drivers, health care workers, flight crews and others, including most recently sports professionals, are currently exempt from Canada’s mandatory 14-day quarantine.
There are similar exemptions for essential travel across the US-Mexican border.
At least one public poll suggests Canadians aren’t eager for a reopening as the pandemic escalates dramatically in the US, where new cases of the diseases have reached 60,000 a day nationwide.
According to one poll, a large majority of Canadians say the US-Canada border should remain closed for the foreseeable future.
The US has 3.37 million confirmed cases and more than 135,000 deaths as of today, according to Johns Hopkins University, which reported that Canada has 110,058 cases and 8,836 deaths.
The US currently has the highest per capita death rate from Covid in the Americas, at over 41 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 population.
Canada’s death rate is about 23.5 per 100,00.